Why Does Coffee Make You Poop? | Hacker News Reader

Why Does Coffee Make You Poop?

bonappetit.com

Given it's still a mystery, could an enterprising PhD student or prof could make this their primary research focus, formulate a plausible explanation, get published in an academic journal, communicate their findings to the lay audience via an insubstantive book on the subject that would have been better off as an article in The New Yorker or something, and subsequently appear on the Huberman podcast to talk about how to optimize caffeine consumption for optimal defecation?

Having run the experiment:

Morning hot coffee > go poop

Morning cold coffee > no urge to poop

Morning hot tea > go poop

Morning Coco Cola > no urge to poop

Morning hot water > go poop

Morning cold water > no urge to poop

I realize this is not a statistcallly relevant study, but I suspect hot liquid is the culprit to investigate.

Back when I smoked, a morning cigarette is a surefire way to make you want to 'go'.

Not sure what that means here..

Then it’s hot liquid or gas inside the system.

Someone got to experiment with hot solids and report now.

Counterpoint of 1 - for me, a morning Red Bull has the same deuce-inducing result as coffee. Both have higher amounts of caffeine than a Coke.

I drink cold coffee whenever possible and don't notice a difference there.

Morning coffee = poop Any coffee after = no poop

I really thought I'd read something about 'when it's hot you're sipping more than gulping, so you're swallowing more often and swallowing starts some muscle mechanics chain that helps your intestines push food out'. Similar to feeling you need to go when you've started eating.

Reading the article and all the comments about HN's bowel movements on a variety of stimulants, I guess I misunderstood or it was disproved...

Well if the answer is they’re not sure here’s my guess-

Since caffeine puts our body on high alert, it wants to dump excess weight we are carrying in case we need to taunt in some cases or lose aggro in other cases.

Probably why we get dehydrated and poop off the weight, so we can make our final stand.

But these days it’s just so we can deal with stupid ass meetings and annoying managers.

Evolution working its course

Doesn’t explain why it’s a morning phenomenon for the most part. I imagine most people aren’t hightailing it to the toilet once they drink a cup of coffee no matter the time of the day.

It isn’t just caffeine though. I drink plenty of non-coffee caffeine, with little effect. As soon as I drink coffee, I have to go within 15 minutes.

But doesn't coffee contain 10 to 100X the amount of caffeine than say a bottle of soda? I always thought you had to go to the bathroom after drinking coffee because coffee had so much caffeine. But that's purely conjecture. Makes me also wonder whether caffeine is toxic if your body wants to expel it. More conjecture.

No, not usually. Soda tends to be about 30mg of caffeine per serving, a cup of coffee or tea is between 60 and 120mg, and energy drinks are generally 140 to 200mg, though some energy drinks like Bang have up to 300mg of caffeine per can.

Personal anecdote: For me coffee has a laxative effect which I don't get to the same degree when drinking strong tea or energy drinks with very high caffeine levels.

Also, while some energy drinks are associated with laxative effects, it is often attributed to other supplements, such as taurine. (Red Bull even briefly had a laxative warning for some time because of its high dose of taurine, before the FDA refined the guidance on that as taurine is not universally a laxative, just some people are more affected by it than others.)

You can also just take 2 100mg caffeine tablets, that's usually a bit more caffeine than coffee, but does not make you have to go.

Same for me, though not for everyone else.

If I had to guess, it has something to do with coffee's general acidity and individual differences in GI tract microbiomes.

I think it is based on caffeine tolerance. I have cut down to only one cup of green tea in the morning and it does the poop magic just fine.

Try substituting the coffee with hot water. In my case, I had the same urge to go, as if I had drank coffee.

“Experts aren’t sure”

Great, thanks.

“Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no [or maybe more accurately, ‘I don’t know’.]”

I recently experimented with nicotine tablets and noticed that they also had a similar laxative effect as caffeine at 3-4mg within the space of an hour.

All stimulants do.

Plugged up? 1) Get outa bed. 2) Chug a liter/quart of water. 3) Down a strong coffee.

Then brace for it.

Chocolate and coffee both contain theobromine, which is a laxative.

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