A pot of hot coffee, representative image
Highlights
- Coffee compounds besides caffeine might be responsible for sudden bowel movements
- Drinking coffee was more effective than warm water at inducing bowel movements
- Adequate water intake is essential for your overall health
Not just cigarettes, but coffee can also make some people poop as a team of researchers has suggested that in some cases, coffee can jumpstart their bowel movement within minutes of consuming it.
Coffee compounds besides caffeine might be responsible for sudden bowel movements, reports CNN.
"In some cases, as with coffee and bowel movements, there likely just has not been the medical demand to merit serious investigation," Kyle Staller from the Massachusetts General Hospital was quoted as saying.
There just might be something special about coffee, and the research that exists proves "that patients are right," said Staller, also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Some small studies have shown that drinking coffee was more effective than warm water at inducing bowel movements -- that is saying something since "water is an integral part of normal digestion with large amounts being released and re-absorbed by your digestive tract every day," he said.
This of course does not mean that adequate water intake is not essential for your overall health, the report said.
And whether the coffee's caffeinated or decaffeinated does not seem to matter in all studies, according to other research -- suggesting that, in some cases, coffee compounds besides caffeine might be responsible for sudden bowel movements.
The identities of these compounds and how they might interact with the digestive tract are still largely unknown, the report said.
