People who take their mobile phones to the toilet should limit their scrolling to the length of two TikTok videos, doctors have advised, after a study found that toilet scrollers are more prone to haemorrhoids than those who leave their devices behind.
The research, published in Plos One, examined 125 people aged 45 and over who were undergoing colonoscopies. Two-thirds admitted to taking a phone to the toilet, with most scrolling through news and social media. After accounting for risk factors such as age, inactivity and low fibre intake, toilet scrollers were 46 per cent more likely to have piles than those who went phoneless.
More than a third (37 per cent) of phone users spent over five minutes on the lavatory, compared with only 7 per cent of those without phones. Dr Trisha Pasricha, a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who led the study, said: 'Leave your smartphone outside because when you go in you have just one job, and you should focus on that job.'
Pasricha noted that while reading on the toilet is not new, modern apps like TikTok and Instagram are far more distracting than newspapers or magazines. 'The whole business model of these apps is to make you lose track of time,' she said. Prolonged sitting increases pressure on anal tissues, weakening connective tissue and causing veins to engorge, leading to haemorrhoids.
Haemorrhoids affect up to a quarter of adults, and while most resolve on their own, over 20,000 surgical procedures are performed annually in the UK. For those who cannot give up their phones, Pasricha suggests a strict limit: 'Set a two TikTok limit. What you shouldn't be doing is getting so trapped in this cycle of scrolling that you lose track of why you came here.'
