People who use their smartphones while sitting on the toilet face are at higher risk for painful, itchy hemorrhoids, according to new research.

Experts have for some time suspected a link between scrolling on the loo and haemorrhoids – or piles, which are lumps inside and around the bottom that cause pain or itching. The academics questioned 125 adults having colonoscopies – where a doctor looks into the rectum with a camera – at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston,