Do you use your smartphone while you sit on the toilet? If so, you are probably spending longer there than you would do otherwise ā and that could be increasing your risk of haemorrhoids by nearly 50 per cent.
āUs gastroenterologists, we always tell our patients, ādonāt spend too much time on the toiletā,ā says at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. āBut when I went into the literature, I found that the data backing this advice is pretty scant.ā
Pasricha and her colleagues have now done their own study, where they asked 125 people who were scheduled to have colonoscopies to fill out questionnaires about their toilet habits, general health and physical activities. Images from the colonoscopies were then reviewed to determine if they had haemorrhoids, also known as piles, which are lumps inside or around your bottom.
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āTheyāre actually very difficult for people to diagnose on their own,ā says Pasricha. āSometimes theyāre internal, so you canāt feel them. Sometimes what youāre feeling externally are not actually haemorrhoids.ā
Two-thirds of the participants, who were all aged over 45, said they used their smartphoneĀ on the toilet. āIf we were to do this in college students, which we are planning on doing, my guess is that weāre going to find almost nobody who doesnāt bring their smartphone into the loo,ā says Pasricha.
In this study, 37 per cent of those who used their smartphone on the toilet spent more than 5 minutes on the WC on average, compared with just 7 per cent of those who didnāt use their device there ā that is, phone-users were about five times as likely to spend more than 5 minutes on the toilet.
However, the participants didnāt seem to recognise this, with just 5 per cent acknowledging that using their smartphone increased the time they spent on the toilet most or all of the time. There was no statistically significant link between the participantsā sex and the time they spent on the toilet.
After adjusting for factors such as age and activity levels, the team concluded that smartphone use on the toilet is associated with a 46 per cent greater risk of haemorrhoids. āObviously our study didnāt prove causation,ā says Pasricha. To address this, the next study will be an intervention one ā where some participants will be asked not to use phones on the WC, which should help gauge whether it really is a problem.
The team also found no association between straining and the risk of haemorrhoids. This may be surprising given how often this claim is made, but the evidence for it is very limited. In fact, some studies have found than constipation.
Pasrichaās study suggests that the main risk factor is time spent sitting on the toilet. The team speculates this is because our pelvic floor muscles have less support in this position than when we sit on a flat surface. āYou donāt have pelvic floor support, so thereās this increased passive pressure thatās engorging those hemorrhoidal cushions,ā says Pasricha.
at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona thinks this is plausible. āProlonged time on the toilet can be like pregnancy and cause more pressure to build up in the pelvic area,ā she says.
If the teamās conclusion is correct, the ubiquity of smartphones might be increasing the incidence of haemorrhoids worldwide. But because they are difficult to diagnose, we donāt know if the incidence is changing, says Pasricha. Plus other factors, such as diets, are changing too.
Pasricha thinks it is best to leave smartphones outside the bathroom, but printed reading material might be OK. āRead something thatās not designed to be addictive and make you lose track of time, like the Financial Times,ā she says.
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