It may be a good idea to leave your phone outside the bathroom
Ekaterina Demidova / Getty Images
Do you use your smartphone while you sit on the toilet? If this is the case, you probably spend there longer than you would do it otherwise – and this could increase your risk of hemorrhoids by almost 50%.
“We, gastroenterologists, always tell our patients:” Do not spend too much time on the toilet “, explains Trisha Pasricha at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. “But when I entered the literature, I found that the data supporting this tips are quite rare.”
PasiCha and his colleagues have now done their own study, where they asked 125 people who had to have colonoscopies to fill out questionnaires on their toilet, general health and physical activities. Images of the colonoscopies were then examined to determine if they had hemorrhoids, also called batteries, which are pieces inside or around your bottom.
“They are actually very difficult to diagnose people by themselves,” says Pasricha. “Sometimes they are internal, so you can’t feel them. Sometimes what you feel outside are not really hemorrhoids. ”
Two -thirds of the participants, all over the age of 45, said they used their smartphone on the toilet. “If we were to do this with students, which we plan to do, I suppose that we are going to find almost anyone who does not bring his smartphone in the toilet,” explains Pasricha.
In this study, 37% of those who used their smartphone on the toilet spent more than 5 minutes on the WC on average, against only 7% of those who did not use their device there-that is to say that phone users were about five times more likely to spend more than 5 minutes on the toilet.
However, participants did not seem to recognize this, with only 5% recognizing that using their smartphone increased the time they spent on the toilet most of the time. There was no statistically significant link between the sex of the participants and the time they spent on the toilet.
After adjustment for factors such as age and activity levels, the team has concluded that the use of smartphones on the toilet is associated with a risk of 46% higher of hemorrhoids. “Obviously, our study has not proven causality,” explains Pasricha. To remedy this, the next study will be an intervention – where some participants will be invited not to use the WC phones, which should help to assess if it is really a problem.
The team also found no association between tension and the risk of hemorrhoids. This can be surprising given the frequency to which this assertion is made, but the evidence for this is very limited. In fact, some studies have revealed that hemorrhoid risk is more closely linked to diarrhea than constipation.
The Pasricha study suggests that the main risk factor is the time spent in the toilet. The team speculates it because our pelvic floor muscles have less support in this position than when we sit on a flat surface. “You have no support for the pelvic floor, so there is this increased passive pressure that engorges these hemorrhoidal cushions,” explains Pasricha.
Lucinda Harris at Mayo Clinic in Arizona thinks it is plausible. “The prolonged time on the toilet can be like a pregnancy and cause more pressure to accumulate in the pelvic area,” she says.
If the conclusion of the team is correct, the omnipresence of smartphones could increase the incidence of hemorrhoids in the world. But because they are difficult to diagnose, we do not know if the incidence changes, explains Pasricha. In addition, other factors, such as diets, also change.
PasiCha thinks that it is better to leave smartphones outside the bathroom, but the printed reading equipment could be ok. “Read something that is not designed to be addictive and get you lost time, like the Financial time“, She said.
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