Using your phone on the toilet raises your risk of hemorrhoids, study suggests
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(NEW YORK) — People who use their smartphones while sitting on the toilet face are at higher risk for painful, itchy hemorrhoids, according to new research published in the journal PLOS One.
Researchers investigated the bathroom habits of 125 adults undergoing screening colonoscopies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. About two-thirds of participants reported scrolling through their smartphones while sitting on the toilet.
Those who were glued to their phone while using the bathroom were 46% more likely to have hemorrhoids compared to those who left their device in another room.
“The likely explanation is that prolonged sitting increases pressure in the veins around the rectum, which can contribute to hemorrhoids,” Dr. Ernesto Gonzaga, a gastroenterologist from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and who did not contribute to the study, told ABC News.
Scrollers spent a longer time on the toilet, the researchers found — about five times as many smartphone users logged over five minutes of toilet time per visit. When researchers asked what they were doing on their phones while doing their business, people confessed to catching up on the news, cruising through their social media feeds, or sending emails and texts.
Gonzaga pointed out that phone users also reported getting less exercise than non-users, suggesting that their broader lifestyle patterns could also contribute to their risk of hemorrhoids.
Hemorrhoids are swollen blood vessels around the anus and rectum, according to the National Institutes of Health. They can cause itching, pain and discomfort, and in many cases, they can also lead to rectal bleeding. Studies show that they are common in both men and women and affect about 1 in 20 Americans and about half of adults over 50 years old have hemorrhoids.
They are mainly treated with more fiber and fluids, soothing creams or sitz baths, and in tougher cases, they may require surgery.
“In clinical practice, we still recognize the more classical risk factors for hemorrhoids, including constipation, straining, low fiber intake, prolonged toilet sitting, pregnancy, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle. Constipation and abnormal bowel habits are particularly strong risk factors, while high fiber intake is protective,” Gonzaga said.
Gonzaga noted that the study does have some limitations. It looked at a small number of subjects and relied on self-reporting, so it doesn’t necessarily prove that phone use on the toilet is a direct cause of hemorrhoids, he said. He called for more research to get to the bottom of it.
“Given that hemorrhoids already account for millions of outpatient visits and substantial healthcare costs, these findings raise a broader public health concern about a growing burden of disease, potentially extending into younger populations as smartphone use,” he added.
Noor Shaik, MD, PhD, is a neurology resident physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
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(NEW YORK) — A fast-rising form of breast cancer that’s harder to detect on mammograms now makes up more than one in ten cases in the United States, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Invasive lobular carcinoma, the second most common breast cancer type, is increasing about 3% each year, more than triple the rate of other breast cancers, the report, published on Tuesday morning, found.
About 80% of breast cancers are the invasive ductal type, which occurs when cancer cells grow in the milk ducts and invade the surrounding breast tissue.
However, incidence of invasive lobular carcinoma, a cancer than develops in the milk-producing glands of the breast — once rare — has doubled since the 1970s.
Lobular breast cancer hasn’t drawn much attention partly because many people view the five-year survival rate, which is over 90%, as a “cure rate,” but survival often drops after that point, Rebecca Siegel, an author of the report and senior scientific director of surveillance research at the ACS, told ABC News.
“And so, if you look at five-year survival, actually women with lobular breast cancer do better than ductal breast cancer,” she said. “I think that’s probably why it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention.”
However, Siegel added that the long-term outlook is poorer than for other breast cancer subtypes.
“For metastatic disease, women with lobular breast cancer are about half as likely to be alive at 10 years,” she said.
Lobular cancers are rising even faster for women under 50, at more than twice the rate of other breast cancers, the report found.
The cancer is most common in white women, with about 14 cases per 100,000 — 33% to 55% higher than in other racial and ethnic groups — but the fastest rise, at nearly 4.5% a year, has been seen among Asian American and Pacific Islander women.
Diagnosing and treating lobular breast cancer differs from other types in several ways, Dr. Anita Mamtani, a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told ABC News.
Mamtani explained that instead of forming a lump, “lobular cancers tend to grow in a straight line or sheet-like patterns.”
This growth pattern can make lobular tumors harder to spot on mammograms, Mamtani said. Patients tend to notice subtle changes such as breast fullness, firmness, swelling, skin redness, nipple changes or discharge.
Compared with other types of breast cancer, lobular cancers are also less responsive to some treatments and more likely to occur in both breasts, which may contribute to poorer long-term outcomes, according to the report.
However, lobular breast cancer still has a strong outlook when found early. The five-year survival rate for early-stage disease is about 99%, and overall survival across all stages is roughly 91%. Outcomes are even better for women who keep up with regular breast cancer screening.
“We will use a variety of diagnostic tools for most patients but, for lobular cancer, that arsenal will include not only mammograms but also ultrasound, contrast-enhanced mammograms, and MRIs,” Mamtani said.
With proper screening, lobular cancer can often be caught in its early stages, she added.
Overall, breast cancer deaths have dropped 44% since 1989, but the disease still affects one in eight women and remains a leading cause of cancer death, according to the ACS.
For all types of breast cancer, regular mammograms remain the best way to catch disease early. For women at average risk, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening every two years from ages 40 to 74.
Women who are at higher risk with a family history of breast cancer or other risk factors should discuss timing of screening with their health care provider.
Nearly half of uninsured women skip breast cancer screening because of cost concerns, the report noted. Free or low-cost options are available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the American Breast Cancer Foundation and local programs.
Experts also recommend maintaining a healthy weight, staying active, limiting alcohol and speaking with your doctor about personal risk factors.
Jamie Parkerson, MD, MS, is a fourth-year psychiatry resident and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — As measles continues to spread across the United States, questions have emerged about whether the country will retain its measles elimination status.
The U.S. is currently experiencing the highest number of measles cases reported in more than three decades, in large part due to an outbreak in western Texas that infected more than 700 people and spread to New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, an outbreak in Arizona and Utah currently shows no signs of slowing down and a separate outbreak in South Carolina has sent dozens of students into quarantine.
If spread of the virus continues into late January, it will mean the U.S. has seen a year of continuous transmission, which could lead to a loss of the country’s elimination status. Measles would once again be considered endemic or constantly circulating.
The threat of the U.S. losing its elimination status is looming after Canada lost its measles elimination status following a struggle to contain a year-long measles outbreak, public health experts told ABC News.
“I do think that the likelihood that we’re going to lose status, especially if things continue the way that they’re going, is I think pretty high,” Dr. Tony Moody, a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Duke University Medical Center, told ABC News.
State of measles in the U.S.
As of Wednesday, there have been 1,753 confirmed cases across 42 states this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
There have been 45 outbreaks, so far this year compared to 16 outbreaks all last year, CDC data shows.
Additionally, 92% of cases have been among those who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the CDC.
There have been three measles deaths this year — the first fatalities due to the disease in a decade — including among two unvaccinated school-aged children in Texas and one unvaccinated adult in New Mexico.
The CDC currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective against measles, the CDC says.
However, CDC data shows vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years. During the 2024-25 school year, 92.5% of kindergartners received the MMR vaccine. This is lower than the 92.7% seen the previous school year and the 95.2% seen in the 2019-20 school year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even in states with high MMR vaccine uptake, pockets of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated communities can lead to rapid spread.
For example, in Texas, 94.3% of kindergartners were up to date on their MMR vaccine for the 2023-24 school year, CDC data shows. However, in Gaines County — the epicenter of this year’s outbreak — 17.6% of kindergartners were exempt from at least one vaccine during the 2023-24 school year, one of the highest exemption rates in the state, according to state health data.
“It’s kind of like you have a very dry forest, so any spark that comes in can burn down the entire forest,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “That’s what’s happening, which is fewer people being vaccinated, as evidenced by the drop in in people entering kindergarten.”
He said one case of measles is like a spark that quickly turns into a blaze as it spread through an unvaccinated community “and that’s why it’s hard to put out the fire.”
How loss of status is determined
The loss of status is determined by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, an agency of the U.N. that oversees international health in the Americas.
An independent body of experts established by the PAHO — known as the Measles, Rubella, and Congenital Rubella Syndrome Elimination Regional Monitoring and Re-Verification Commission (RVC) — meets at least once a year to monitor and re-verify measles and rubella elimination among countries in the Americas.
A person familiar with how PAHO determines loss of elimination status told ABC News that there would have to be compelling evidence that there has been continuous spread of measles in the U.S. since January, when the first cases were reported in Texas and that other outbreaks may trace back to the Texas outbreak.
The person said the committee will get together in mid-2026 to look at the data, write its next report and formally submit it to the PAHO for review. The annual meeting will likely take place in late 2026, unless a previously unplanned meeting is convened beforehand.
“The RVC holds annual meetings with all member states, conducts visits to priority countries, reviews national sustainability reports, and issues recommendations to the Director of PAHO,” a spokesperson for PAHO told ABC News. “It may also convene extraordinary meetings with member states to provide recommendations on specific topics or to follow up on outbreak situations. At this time, no extraordinary meeting has been scheduled for next year specifically to assess the U.S. or Mexico situation, but such a meeting could be convened if the epidemiological situation warrants.”
Between April 2025 and October 2025, Mexico has seen 4,550 cases, according to the WHO, which could also lead to the loss of its elimination status.
Moody explained that the U.S. having measles elimination status, which it received in 2000, is less of a formal declaration and more of a statement that a county has a relatively low number of cases and no sustained transmission.
Loss of status would similarly be a statement that a country has sustained transmission and that the virus is constantly present, he said.
“What does it mean from a public health perspective, or a parent’s perspective, it means that we have a higher risk for seeing transmission, and that if someone goes to a place where there is sustained transmission, there’s kind of an increased risk and, truthfully, you can pick it up just about anywhere,” Moody said.
Canada’s loss of elimination status
Earlier this month, the Public Health Agency of Canada said it was informed of the elimination status loss by PAHO after more than 12 months of continuous measles transmission. Canada’s outbreak began in late October 2024, and the county has seen more than 5,200 confirmed and probable cases since then, data from the health agency shows.
As a result, the Americas region lost elimination status as well.
Canada can re-establish its measles elimination status if measles transmission related to the current outbreak is “interrupted” for at least 12 months, according to the county’s health officials.
“Given that we share one of the longest borders in the world with Canada. It’s not as if there’s some magic barrier between U.S. and Canada,” Moody said. “If there’s transmission in Canada, we’re going to get it in the United States. … I’m not saying that Canada has put us at risk. We’ve kind of put ourselves at risk but … I do see it as being a highly likely thing that we’re going to see continued transmission.”
Canada will present and implement an action plan under PAHO’s regional framework to increase immunization coverage, reinforce surveillance systems and ensure rapid outbreak response to stop spread. This shows what the U.S. would likely experience if it lost its status.
“If we lose our status, it’ll be hard to regain it,” Chin-Hong said, noting how many workers have been laid off at HHS that might have helped control large outbreaks. “Not only loss of expertise, but just loss of the workforce in general, the people who go out and do the surveillance and contain the epidemic by vaccination efforts and all that. … It just denotes how fragile public health gains are. In general, it’s easy to lose it and hard to get it back.”
How to prevent further spread
Public health experts told ABC News there are several steps that can be taken to help control the spread of measles in the U.S. including increasing funding to public health for monitoring and surveillance as well as spreading awareness about how dangerous measles can be.
However, they add that the best way to stop the spread is through vaccination, both to protect yourself and the most vulnerable individuals.
“We can’t control the people who are unable to get vaccines because they’re being treated for cancer, because they are born with an immunodeficiency,” Dr. Aaron Milstone, pediatric director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Health System, told ABC News. “What we can control is everyone else in the community who is eligible for a vaccine, who does not take it, and that’s the reason that measles is spreading, in part, because the herd protection from our community has gone down.”
As an extra step, public health agencies have previously recommended early MMR vaccination for infants living in outbreak areas or traveling internationally.
This would result in three doses overall: an early dose between age 6 months and 11 months and then the two regularly scheduled doses at age 1 and between ages 4 and 6.
Milstone said the recommendation to give a child their first MMR dose at age one was under the assumption that they likely would not be exposed to measles before then and that antibodies passed in utero would help protect them during their first year of life.
Now, with the continuous spread being seen, “are we going to have to rethink our recommendations for when to vaccinate kids in the U.S.?” Milstone said.
(NEW YORK) — Since the start of Breast Cancer Awareness initiatives in 1985, over 517,000 lives have been saved from better treatment and proactive screening, according to the American Cancer Society.
“Today is a day to celebrate forty years of incredible progress in ending cancer as we know it, for everyone,” Dr. Shanti Sivendran, senior vice president of cancer care support at the American Cancer Society and medical oncologist at Penn Medicine, told ABC News.
In the 1980s in the United States, only one in four women were getting screened for breast cancer, and access to screening technology was limited, Sivendran said.
That began to change in October 1985, when the American Cancer Society partnered with other groups to launch a week-long event devoted to raising awareness about breast cancer. The campaign quickly gained momentum as more organizations joined in, and by 1990 President George H. W. Bush issued a proclamation officially designating October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
What started as a small collaboration grew into a global movement, now marked each year by millions who wear pink ribbons, participate in walks, and push for advances in research and early detection.
“After 40 years of research, technology and policy advances, we are now seeing that two out of three women are getting life-saving mammograms that are covered by their insurance, and we’ve seen a 40% reduction in mortality from breast cancer, from diligent screening, [and] from treatment advances that allow for more tailored options for patients.” Sivendran noted.
The five-year survival rate for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer has jumped up from around 75% in the early 1980s, to over 90% in the past few years. Researchers estimate that advances in screening account for about one-quarter of the drop in breast cancer deaths, while improved treatments are responsible for the other three-quarters.
“There have been great strides in breast cancer treatments from less extensive breast surgery to more targeted radiation, and the explosion of new drugs that are more specific for the different subtypes of breast cancer.” Dr. Katherine Crew, breast medical oncologist and director of the clinical breast cancer prevention program at Columbia University, Irving Medical Center, told ABC News.
Between 2000 and 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved more than two dozen drugs to treat breast cancer, many designed to target a specific biomarker in the tumor. Experts liken these markers to fingerprints that can help doctors match each patient with the treatment most likely to work for them, making care more precise and personalized than ever before.
But not everyone has benefited from these strides equally.
As Crew noted, “While we have made great progress in improving breast cancer screening and treatment leading to improved survival, there have also been widening disparities in breast cancer outcomes, with Black women having higher breast cancer mortality compared to their White counterparts.”
White women with breast cancer have the highest five-survival rate at around 93%. But this dropped to 84% for black women. While black women were more likely to die from any kind of breast cancer, for certain types of breast cancer black women had up to a 50% higher risk of dying than their white counterparts. While there are multiple factors behind these differences, Crew stressed the need to better address these health disparities.
Sivendran said the past 40 years of Breast Cancer Awareness show how a movement can save lives, but she stressed that the work is far from over and urged people to carry forward the progress made over the last four decades.
“Go out there and take action. Get your screening mammogram, understand your risk, invest in cancer research,” she said. “And together, we’re going to continue to make advances over the next 40 years.”
