In the quiet interior of the human gut, a team of Japanese researchers has found that those who suffer persistent abdominal distress from diverticular disease carry a measurably different microbial world than those who do not. Across five medical centers, scientists mapped the bacterial communities of patients living with symptomatic uncomplicated diverticular disease and discovered a landscape marked by diminished diversity, depleted butyrate-producing bacteria, and a rise in microbes associated with biofilm formation. The findings, accepted by Scientific Reports, do not yet establish cause,