In The New York Times article “Why Does Coffee Make Me Poop?” Alice Callahan (2021), while also addressing related health issues, summarizes the available evidence and theory behind the rapid laxative effect that coffee has on some drinkers. In addition to causing a rapid desire to defecate, or to poop as Callahan likes to call it, coffee’s effect on the digestive system hastens the return to normal eating and pooping for those who have undergone colorectal or gynaecological surgery, for which reason her main source, Dr. Robert Martindale, medical director for hospital nutrition services at Oregon Health and Science University, offers his patients coffee the morning after such surgery. Similarly, some see coffee as an antidote to constipation, although Callahan reports that dietician Sonya Angelone advises that this is better dealt with by eating enough fibre, of which coffee contains only one gramme per standard cup of 0.2 litres. According to Martindale, the explanation for coffee causing a substantial percentage of drinkers to poop within minutes of drinking it is mediation by hormones or other factors in the brain, which are rapidly stimulated when coffee reaches the stomach, and which brain action stimulates a response in the colon long before the coffee itself gets there an hour or more after it has been drunk. However, the theoretical explanation is tentative since, as Callahan, citing Martindale, tells us, the research studies are largely “small, old and limited.” For example, while a 1990 study reported only 29% of coffee drinkers needed a quick trip to the toilet, Martindale reports his experience suggests that up to 60% of his own patients to be so affected: there is no strong consensus even on how prevalent the pooping effect of coffee is. Research from 1998 appears to rule out caffeine as the responsible chemical, since the effect is found to occur whether the coffee consumed is regular or decaffeinated, which leaves the cause to be found among the other 1,000 or so chemicals that make up coffee. Finally, having noted that the US Food and Drug Administration says that four or five cups of coffee daily is not a problem for of its drinkers, Callahan concludes on the cheerful note restated from her opening that for many people, coffee is “part of a comforting morning routine, waking us up in a multitude of ways.”
Reference
Callahan, A. (2021, December 1). Why does coffee make me poop? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/well/eat/why-does-coffee-make-you-poop.html
This New York Times article interested me for very personal reasons: mainly that I've been addicted to the range of drugs that the author, Alice Callahan, refers to for the past 45 years. I used to worry, and sometimes be told by well-meaning friends or acquaintances, that coffee was unhealthy, that I should stick to drinking tea, or at least drink less. Decades ago, such claims did worry me, although not enough for me to actually stop my drug addiction.
ReplyDeleteIt has been many years since I've learned that not only is coffee in the substantial amount I drink not unhealthy, but that it in fact has positive health benefits. The article points out that according to the US FDA, four or five cups of coffee a day is not a problem, so my two large, strong black coffees daily gives me a lot of pleasure, the comfort of a regularly repeated habit the centres my morning and afternoon routines, and also helps me fight off a range of cancers and other nasty diseases. I haven't carefully worked it out, but I go through about two packs of beans a week, so my average cup of coffee costs around 35 to 40 baht, which seems very reasonable for the utility I get in exchange.
One surprising fact, sort of related to health, that I learned from the article is that coffee contains fibre. I had thought it was just water and a mix of delicious chemicals that were nothing like fibre. In fact, I think I might not understand the concept of dietary fibre correctly: I've always thought it meant bits of indigestible stuff that was fairly solid, but my coffee is filtered, and didn't seem to me to contain anything so solid as the way I'd thought of fibre.
And I believe that fibre is also good for helping us to poop (as Callahan informally puts it) regularly. That was what really caught my eye in the title when I was following my morning routine of browsing the NYT with my morning coffee a couple of weeks ago. I have never noticed that effect, but one, and I think only one, of my friends always complains that coffee makes him need to promptly poop. My own experience and that of my friends does not support Dr. Martindale's observation that "up to 60% of" people feel the effect, but at least now I now that my friend's experience is well within the range of a normal response to coffee and not caused by any underlying medical problem.
A quick reading of the Wikipedia article "Dietary fiber" informed me that there are two types of fibre, the one I'd always known of, which is insoluble fibre, and also soluble fibre, which is a new category to me.
DeleteSomehow, although I had occasionally been confused about a references to fibre in my diet, I'd never gotten around to clearing this up before.
Hi Peter, thank you for summarizing the news article for us. I like it a lot. I usually drink a cup of coffee in the morning so that I can start working. However my cup of coffee is different from yours, as I drink hot cappuccino. I used to drink hot americana, but some of my friends would advise me to stop drinking strong black coffee because that can reduce my calcium in my bones. Even though I haven't checked where they've got the information, I believed in what they say. One thing that I have noticed on drinking coffee is that it causes my teeth yellow and I feel uneasy in them. Therefore, I changed my habit of drinking strong black coffee to drinking coffee with milk. According to your summary, I usually get the coffee's effect on my digestive system. I mean it soothes my stomach and it helps me poop well. After drinking a cup of coffee, I need to go to a restroom.
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