If you’re a regular coffee drinker, you’ll know that this caffeinated drink not only keeps you awake in the morning, but it also makes you get up and go to the bathroom.
While coffee’s laxative effects have long been known, scientists still don’t know why this happens. Until they determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, with an experiment: Give mice coffee and watch their defecation.
Preliminary results of this study will be presented later in the week at a scientific conference called ” Digestive Diseases Week ” in the US. Ahead of the conference, a partial truth was revealed to us: Turns out, the laxative effect of coffee has nothing to do with caffeine.
Coffee has a stimulating effect on bowel movements.
The new study was carried out by scientists from the University of Texas School of Medicine. In it, they gave mice a small cup of coffee for three days in a row, one group of mice drinking regular caffeinated coffee, while the other group drank decaf (decaffeinated) coffee.
The researchers then examined the mice’s intestinal systems, focusing on the contracting muscles that help them push food (and ultimately waste) through the intestines. Finally, they studied how muscle tissue from the intestines reacted directly to coffee in the lab.
The results showed that the truth was clear: the muscles in the small and large intestines were able to contract better after the rats drank coffee, meaning that everything from food to waste could move faster. along their intestinal tract.
” Coffee has a stimulant effect on bowel movements and is unrelated to caffeine . We can experience this even with decaffeinated coffee, so the laxative effect is not dependent on that.” The study’s lead author, Xuan-Zheng Shi, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas, told Gizmodo by phone.
Having said that, this isn’t the first study to show that the muscles in the gut are directly affected by coffee. Since the 1990s, researchers have found that healthy people addicted to coffee often have stronger bowel movements after drinking black coffee.
But the study by Associate Professor Shi is the first evidence that even decaffeinated coffee causes this effect. A 1990 study showed effects lasting 4 minutes. After coffee has an indirect effect on the colon through the small intestine or stomach, about 30% of people who drink coffee will feel the urge to have a bowel movement.
About 30% of people who finish drinking coffee will feel the urge to defecate.
Even so, going beyond research done two decades ago, Associate Professor Shi and his team analyzed the stools of rats that drank coffee. Compared with the feces of mice that did not drink, the feces of these mice contained less bacteria.
When small pieces of feces were dipped in a petri dish with a solution made with 1.5% coffee, the bacteria stopped growing; Similar but stronger effects can be seen when stool samples are exposed to a 3% coffee solution.
Just like the previous results, decaffeinated coffee produced the same effect.
“That’s interesting, it means that coffee can be an antibacterial agent, and we can see this – again – with decaffeinated coffee ,” said Associate Professor Shi. ” However, we need to do more research on the issue, why coffee might have such an inhibitory effect on the microbiome?”.
At this point, it’s still too early to say exactly how coffee might affect the bacteria that live inside our gut. Called the gut microbiome , this population includes both good bacteria and bad bacteria.
We know that the gut microbiome is a fragile and easily influenced environment. If coffee kills, washes, or slows the growth of good bacteria, that’s bad. On the contrary, if it kills the bad bacteria, this will benefit our body.
Other studies have shown an association between the gut microbiome and intestinal motility. Some studies show that coffee reduces the rate of colon cancer. But Associate Professor Shi said more research is needed before we can reach a definitive conclusion.
Coffee can be considered an easily available laxative.
At this point, it’s still too early to say exactly how coffee might affect the bacteria that live inside our gut.
But now, science can only tell you: 1 in 3 coffee drinkers will have a bowel movement. Therefore, coffee can be considered an easily available laxative, to help people who are constipated or have a temporary loss of bowel movements, as complications can occur after certain types of surgery, improve their condition. image.
Meanwhile, for those wondering if they can ” detox ” coffee, removing toxins from the intestinal tract as a form of enema, this study is not a proof of that.