Hi Cocacola...
Very many thanks for your link to the GutSense article, which I followed and read with great care.
My first reaction is that it is indeed an interesting concept to consider that we should in fact be taking in less fibre, but then I also think we should be fully aware that the article was written in America and primarily aimed at the American way of life more than our European Lifestyle. Also, the writer would appear to have a 'business' of his own to sell - he wants people to buy into his health programmes, so anything radically different is bound to appeal on some level.
I think I do however understand his theory that too much fibre can only cause more bulk which creates more difficulties for the digestive system and so lead on to constipation and the worsening of the 'Diverticulum Effect'. I don't wholeheartedly agree with his eventual supposition that laxatives and antibiotics taken to help relieve Diverticulitis actually worsen the case. I suspect that there is a middle ground somewhere. Besides a good healthy diet, which should ideally include minimally processed cereals, seeded wholemeal bread, fish, meat, vegetables and fruit, all in moderation, I am a firm believer in the benefit of the Macrogol family of drug free 'bowel looseners'(such as DulcoBalance), because essentially all they do is absorb moisture from the small intestine and carry it right through the gut, so softening the bowel contents, making them easier to pass without undue straining. That, together with a normal healthy diet, puts less tension into the gut and makes the formation of another diverticulum and the infection of current diverticula even less likely. I would agree with his suggestion that we should try to regularise our bowel emptying habits to a daily ritual, partly dictated by the natural feeling of post-eating bowel-inclination to evacuate itself, and never try to hang on for a more convenient time.
Keep the 'research' going... One day we might all get an answer we can be happy with.
Robin.