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Comment by jnwatson | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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