How social media smartphone scrolling on the toilet could increase your haemorrhoid risk

Going to the loo for many means some extra precious time smartphone scrolling on social media, but a new study has found that those who have this kind of prolonged screen time are more likely to get haemorrhoids.

This is because those who use their phone on the toilet tend to stay on the loo longer, and therefore the longer someone is sat in this position, haemorrhoids become increasingly more prevalent.

Before the study, there was no sufficient evidence linking the two - just anecdotes,

How was this research gathered?

That's when research was conducted by Dr Trisha Pasricha, a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and her team, with their findings published on Wednesday in PLOS One.

As part of a bowel cancer screening programme, they examined 25 adult colonoscopy patients aged 45 and older for haemorrhoids, and the patients also answered a range of questions concerning their diet, exercise, time spent on the toilet, bowel habits, if they've had constipation before, etc.

To get an idea of how often the patients used their phones, they were also quizzed on their scrolling habits and whether they took them to the loo. If so, what apps were used during this time?

What were the findings?

iStockphoto by Getty Images

The results revealed that more than 40 per cent of those patients had haemorrhoids, and two-thirds of people used a smartphone on the toilet.

In fact, loo scrollers were 45 per cent more likely to have piles than those who left didn't take their phone in with them, as for time spent, 37 per cent were on the lavatory for over five minutes, a contrast to phoneless patients at 7 per cent.

Sitting and having chill time on the toilet isn't a new concept; before today's technology, it was newspapers and magazines that had our attention.

Expert advice

iStockphoto by Getty Images

But it seems the addictive nature of social media apps has us sat on the lavvy for longer.

"The whole business model of these apps is to make you lose track of time,” Dr. Pasricha said. “Our pre-TikTok ancestors were just reading a newspaper or whatever they could find. It wasn’t distracting to the same level.”

People are getting haemorrhoids as a result of sitting on the toilet for a length of time, which puts pressure on anal tissues - ouch.

“If you’re just hanging out there in the open, this passive pressure will eventually, over time, cause the connective tissue to weaken and cause those veins to engorge,” she explained.

So what should we do to avoid this from happening?

“Leave your smartphone outside because when you go in you have just one job, and you should focus on that job,” Dr. Pasricha added.

“If the magic hasn’t happened within five minutes, you should get up and go. Take a breather and come back.”

Recommended time limit

But for those who can't resist a cheeky scroll on their socials while relieving their bowels, Dr. Pasricha shared the recommended time limit by the length of the posts.

“Set a two-TikTok limit,” she said. “What you shouldn’t be doing is getting so trapped in this cycle of scrolling and watching TikTok that you lose track of why you came here in the first place.”

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