Coffee drinking habits may greatly impact makeup of gut biome | Hacker News Reader

Coffee drinking habits may greatly impact makeup of gut biome

medicalxpress.com

48 pointsGaishan24 comments

TLDR; People who drank coffee regularly had higher levels (eight times) of a gut bacteria called Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus. The research team acknowledges that they do not know what impact higher levels of L. asaccharolyticus may have on people, but suggest it is likely associated with health benefits that have been attributed to coffee drinking.

The interesting bit isn't coffee, but the insight that how foods train our gut biome could be the source of particular effects. Maybe we have been looking for anti-whatever properties in the wrong place.

More on Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus here [0]. It's a butyrate (butryic acid) producer.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6013597/

Normally I'm very skeptical of the pro coffee health studies or effects but if true that's actually great for gut health - Butyrate is one of the essential fatty acids and helps the lining of the GI track repair itself and reduces inflammation

But the title says it has great effect

You have to read all the words. Great effect on the gut biome.

I wonder if decaf has the same effect.

Hedge your bets - drink decaf instead of regular every other day.

Nicotine gum sort of helps for the decaf days. I'm looking for other non-caff stimulant options if anyone has thoughts.

please do not casually recommend nicotine to people. it is not like caffeine. maybe you are able to use it a little without getting addicted, but that would make you an outlier. it is not a replacement for a cup of coffee in any form, and you're casually suggesting others play fast and loose with a nasty and horribly addictive substance.

God and nicotine gum is so nasty, it makes you burp and has this weird acrid chemical taste. Just awful.

The mode of injestion impacts how addictive something is. Nicotine via gum is less addictive that smoking, which is less addictive than vaping.

The unpleasant experience you describe also helps to limit addictiveness, as does not using two days in a row.

I find caffeine much more addictive than nicotine. We're all different.

Yerba mate is differently caffeinated (hopefully you know decaf is really just half caff), plus it's kinda fun getting the gourd and the bomba. I recommend meta mate out of Berlin, they export the good stuff out of Brazil, much greener than grocery store / commodity varieties

There's mushroom coffees that claim to be stimulating, you can look at four sigma for that, tho my favorite was their instant coffee with cordyceps, good pre workout.

Then there is breathwork of the wimhof variety, "get high on your own supply" deep breathing and ice baths, all natural.

> hopefully you know decaf is really just half caff

In the US, to be labelled as decaf more than 99% of caffeine must be removed. The EU wording, iirc, is a bit weird but amounts to essentially the same requirement.

So decaf really is decaf. The only people who might notice some effect are those who never drink any caffeinated drinks at all, and even then I'd say they wouldn't notice much.

Regarding decaf. "The authors suggest the following standard values for the United States: coffee (5 oz) 85 mg for ground roasted coffee, 60 mg for instant and 3 mg for decaffeinated" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8603790/

just get unsmoked yerba and never drink it burning hot to lower the risk of esophageal cancer

Ephedra[1] aka "Mormon tea" or Ma Huang, though it can cause palpitations (and clear your sinuses, something for everyone).

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedra_(plant)#Human_use

Dayymn, this ended like a bad Shyamalan movie; i have no idea if I should continue to guzzle my coffee or abandon asap

All of civilization was built on caffeine. I’m going to continue this trend.

I find that it is easier to keep drinking coffee than to keep being civilised.

Doesn't everything we consume?

Probably, hence the study to confirm that assumption. It is usually just ignored though, with nutritionists focused on the direct effects of ingesting food and not noticing how our biome adapts and the indirect effects this causes.

> They suggest there are substantial impacts of a single food or beverage on the human gut biome.

How would the bacteria survive and procreate?

My hypothesis is that they need to eat something.

And coffee is the most delicious of things.

Imagine how productive they must be?

Some things have much more of an effect than others (stuff high in prebiotic fermentables)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com