{"id":6358,"date":"2025-09-10T01:59:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/6358\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T01:59:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T01:59:27","slug":"if-youre-reading-this-while-on-the-toilet-heres-why-that-might-not-be-good-for-your-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/6358\/","title":{"rendered":"If you’re reading this while on the toilet, here’s why that might not be good for your health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the crappy ways smartphones have affected our health<\/a>, this one is a real kick in the pants.<\/p>\n

A first-of-its-kind study links excessive scrolling on the phone while sitting on the toilet with hemorrhoids.<\/p>\n

(Insert poo emojis.) <\/p>\n

But, seriously. Sitting on an open bowl offers no support for the pelvic floor. That puts pressure on veins in the rectum, making them swollen and inflamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer you sit on the toilet, the worse it is for you,\u201d said Dr. Trisha Pasricha, director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center\u2019s Institute for Gut-Brain Research Institute in Boston. Pasricha is also an author of the study, which was published Wednesday in PLOS One<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And smartphones are designed to keep people fixated for as long as possible. \u201cThey\u2019re completely consuming to us in ways that wasn\u2019t happening to the casual bathroom reader in the 80s,\u201d Pasricha said. \u201cThey could much more easily put the newspaper down and get up and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pasricha and colleagues surveyed 125 adults just before they were about to have a routine colonoscopy to screen for colorectal cancer.<\/p>\n

Eighty-three (66%) of the participants admitted to using their phones in the bathroom \u2014 mostly to catch up on news of the day and scroll through social media.<\/p>\n

Gastroenterologists performing the colonoscopies looked for evidence of inflamed veins, or hemorrhoids. People who said they took their phone into the bathroom were 46% more likely to have hemorrhoids compared to the others.<\/p>\n

The risk remained even when researchers accounted for other factors associated with hemorrhoids, including dietary fiber, exercise and constipation or straining while using the toilet.<\/p>\n

Hemorrhoids aren\u2019t necessarily dangerous, but they can be bothersome, itchy and even painful. They also bleed sometimes, understandably causing concern and leading to nearly 4 million doctor\u2019s office and emergency department visits<\/a> a year.<\/p>\n

Over time, \u201cpelvic floor dysfunction can also lead to incontinence, worsen constipation and be associated with rectal pain,\u201d said Dr. Reezwana Chowdhury, an inflammatory bowel disorder specialist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Chowdhury was not involved with the new research.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, microscopic particles from urine and feces are sent flying through the air when a toilet is flushed. Taking a phone into the bathroom, Chowdhury said, \u201cis kind of gross.\u201d<\/p>\n

Younger patients<\/p>\n

In the new study, smartphone users in the bathroom tended to be younger, meaning adults in their 40s and 50s, versus people over age 60.<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Cima, a colorectal surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said he\u2019s noticed an uptick in recent years of people coming in with hemorrhoids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am seeing younger, earlier- and middle-aged people having more hemorrhoidal complaints, but I can\u2019t tie it to smartphones,\u201d said Cima, who was not involved with the new study. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s because they\u2019re using smartphones or they have better access to care or they\u2019re not eating appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 5-minute rule<\/p>\n

The experts agreed that business on the toilet should take no longer than 5 minutes.<\/p>\n

More than 37% of study participants who used a smartphone in the bathroom stayed for longer than that, compared to 7% of people who kept their phones out of the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Pasricha and other experts do not advocate for taking a phone into the bathroom. If you absolutely must, set a timer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the magic is not happening within five minutes, it\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d Pasricha said. \u201cTake a breather and try again later.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the crappy ways smartphones have affected our health, this one is a real kick in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,7378,85,46,7381,7380,7377,7379,7376],"class_list":{"0":"post-6358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-hemorrhoids","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-nbc-news","14":"tag-pelvic-floor","15":"tag-sitting-on-the-toilet","16":"tag-smartphone","17":"tag-trisha-pasricha"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}