Most people believe that the caffeine in coffee stimulates bowel movements, prompting people to run to the bathroom immediately after drinking coffee.
But decaffeinated coffee can also stimulate bowel movements.
Coffee is a complex beverage containing more than 1,000 chemical compounds, many of which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. However, determining how it affects the intestines is difficult.
When caffeine enters the body, it stimulates the intestinal muscles, thus moving the intestinal contents through the digestive system. The hotness of the coffee also provides additional assistance in digestive movement, so warm liquids are generally a way to stimulate the entire digestive system.
The general digestive effects of coffee and milk, and the time you drink them, may contribute to the laxative effect.
“It's about the coffee as a whole, not the caffeine alone,” says Jill Deutsch, MD, director of the Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders Program at Yale University. “It seems to be the overall composition of coffee that helps us poop.”
There is no specific amount of coffee that can stimulate bowel movement, because the matter varies from person to person. “Not everyone gets the same laxative benefits from drinking coffee,” Deutsch says. “In fact, some people are not affected at all by drinking coffee.”
Dr. Robert Martindale, professor of surgery and medical director of hospital nutrition services at Oregon Health and Science University, said that drinking a cup of coffee can stimulate the digestive system within minutes, which means that the arrival of coffee in the stomach sends a message to the brain, which stimulates the colon and the need to defecation,
Experts have hypothesized that coffee's messages to the brain may be caused by one or more of the many chemicals found in coffee, perhaps mediated by some of our own hormones that play important roles in the digestive process, such as gastrin or cholecystokinin (both of which can increase in level after drinking coffee). .
While the mechanism remains mysterious, coffee's effects on the intestines may be beneficial for some people, including those recovering from certain types of surgery.
If it's right for you, it may be healthy to drink coffee as a laxative, Deutsch says.
The US Food and Drug Administration says it is safe "for most people" to drink 400 mg of caffeine (the amount found in about 4 or 5 cups of coffee) daily. But this threshold may vary from one person to another, and one should be careful and consult a doctor when necessary.
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