Before going to work in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee may be essential for you. It can help you maintain a happy state of mind and stimulate vigorous energy. However, some people are faced with the situation that they have to go to the toilet to poop immediately after drinking coffee. Scientists have done statistics that 3 out of 10 people want to defecate after drinking coffee, and women seem to be more affected than men. So, why does coffee with a strong taste cause "shit"?
Caffeine is not the cause
Most people would definitely agree that caffeine should be the main cause of the "shit feeling". After all, scientists have long known that caffeine can affect the peristalsis of the gut. Specifically, caffeine is a xanthine alkaloid compound that stimulates the body's sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nerve is the autonomic nerve that controls the human body. It unconsciously regulates body functions all the time, such as the expansion and contraction of blood vessels, changes in blood pressure, and relaxation of small bronchi. Caffeine stimulates the sympathetic nerves, and the final result is to cause rhythmic contraction of blood vessels and intestines, and at the same time make the stomach move.
Therefore, consuming caffeine may increase gastric motility in humans. However, scientists believe that caffeine is not the main cause of people's bowel movements.
First of all, caffeine usually does not work in the human body until 15 minutes after ingestion, and its effects will last for a long time, about 5 to 6 hours. Scientists have done experiments to specifically study the colon's response to coffee. The experimental method is to place a probe in the anus of volunteers to observe the intestinal peristalsis. The results showed that 4 minutes after the volunteers drank the coffee, they began to feel "feces", and the initial peristalsis of the volunteers' intestines also started from the 4th minute. In such a short amount of time, the caffeine simply doesn't have time to work. Plus, coffee isn't the only drink that contains caffeine. Carbonated drinks and many sports drinks also contain caffeine, but these drinks don't make you want to go to the bathroom.
The source of "shit"
If not caffeine, what else is in coffee that triggers the urge to have a bowel movement? Scientists have not yet reached a definite conclusion, but two explanations are quite convincing.
First of all, coffee is relatively acidic, with a pH between 4.5 and 6. In fact, scientists can find more than 40 kinds of acidic substances in coffee, such as acidic fats, alicyclic carboxylic acids, phenolic acids and chlorogenic acids. Among them, chlorogenic acid will promote the human stomach to produce more acid, further enhancing the acidic environment. For healthy people, these acids help the digestion of protein and fat, and promote gastric juice to enter the small intestine at a faster rate, thereby triggering intestinal peristalsis.
Second, while coffee increases gastric acid levels, it also triggers the body to release two important substances—gastrin and cholecystokinin. Gastrin is a gut hormone that is secreted when a person smells, sees, or feels food in the stomach. The release of gastrin triggers a series of reactions in the body: the esophageal sphincter in the stomach contracts, keeping food in the stomach and preventing it from returning to the esophagus; gastrin stimulates movement of the digestive tract and gallbladder, allowing food to enter The small intestine is prepared; at the same time, it will also relax the valve between the small intestine and the colon, the ileocecal valve, allowing food already present in the small intestine to move to the large intestine. Ultimately, gastrin increases motility throughout the digestive system.
Cholecystokinin has a similar chemical structure to gastrin and is also released in greater amounts when coffee is introduced into the stomach, but it does not function the same as gastrin. Cholecystokinin mainly stimulates the gallbladder to release bile into the intestine, which helps digest fats—so people with gallstones often experience pain when drinking coffee; in addition, cholecystokinin can also stimulate the secretion of pancreatic juice, which helps the digestive tract break down large of food particles. All these effects are beneficial to human defecation.
Scientists believe that in addition to affecting gastric acid levels and the secretion of gastrointestinal hormones, there may be other reasons that cause people's "shit feeling". This is because coffee contains thousands of chemical components, many of which can affect the human body, and the human nervous system and digestive system are also extremely complex, which are still not fully understood by scientists. Regardless, it's a well-established fact that coffee aids bowel movements, and if you're constipated, there's nothing better than a cup of coffee.
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