Ascending colon

Looks like

The part of the large bowel climbing up the right side of the belly to the liver.

What it does

Absorbs water and salt and moves contents on.

Keeping it well

A change in bowel habit, blood in the stool or unexplained anaemia needs investigating; bowel screening catches cancer early.

Related conditions

• Acute mesenteric ischaemia (gut stroke)
• Appendicitis
• Bowel obstruction
• Chagas disease
• Chronic constipation
• Clostridioides difficile colitis
• Colon polyps
• Colorectal cancer
• Crohn's disease
• Diverticular disease
• Food poisoning
• Gastroenteritis
• Gastrointestinal bleeding
• Hereditary cancer syndromes (BRCA, Lynch)
• Infant colic
• Intussusception & pyloric stenosis
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Liver abscess (pyogenic and amoebic)
• Microscopic colitis
• Necrotising enterocolitis
• Typhoid & cholera
• Ulcerative colitis