Today, we’re going to talk about why coffee makes you… You know, I just, I can’t, I can’t say the word. I don’t want to say the word, it might be a British thing. I’m sorry. I’m going to switch to the scientific language. In the research, they actually say why coffee gives you a compelling urge to defecate. And it is compelling for some people, so compelling that for them, that’s the whole reason to drink coffee in the morning. Now, a lot of people want to know why this happens. And if I’m honest, none of the answers that I’ve found so far have been particularly compelling or satisfying. And I’ll tell you why. It all happens too fast. It’s way too fast. From the sip to the effect, it’s very quick. Can it even be a digestive thing? That was the question. So to answer this, we’re going to go on a journey through the human body to see what impact coffee has, and to do that, I’m going to be joined by a very special guest. Why don’t you come and introduce yourself? Hey folks, I’m Beanie. My job is to tell you about all the magical things coffee can do, because this content creator will probably get most of it wrong. I mean, you give an influencer access to one scientific paper and they think they’re on Thank you for watching. coffee can do, because this content creator will probably get most of it wrong. I mean you give an influencer access to one scientific paper and they think they’re an authority on all things health. Err, Beanie? Yeah? Are you ready to explore the inner workings of the human body? Oh yes! Now what we’re gonna do is see what happens when you drink a cup of coffee. Are you drinking coffee? Mm-hmm. That’s not right. Well, no. I didn’t want to say anything, but I really think you should have ground a little finer. No, that’s not what I… Let’s go for a journey into the inner workings of the body. So here we are, in the stomach, right around the time that coffee is due to arrive. Gross. Let’s talk about coffee and digestion, because a lot of people do enjoy a cup of coffee at the end of a meal as a kind of digestif. Well, there have been studies done on this, and it turns out coffee does have an impact. What’s happening? Well, you’ll notice that the stomach is filling with more gastric juices. Now, this does help with digestion, but it doesn’t speed up moving on the contents of the stomach whichever meal you most recently enjoyed on into the next stage of the gastrointestinal tract i suppose you’ll probably all blame it on my caffeine you always do well actually beanie studies have shown this effect with both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. So I sort of help with digestion, but also I don’t? Yeah, that’s right, Beanie. More gastric juices, but no increase in gastric emptying. But more importantly, there’s nothing here that creates the compelling urge to defecate. I know. Shall we move on? Mr. Rat Coffee and the Microbiome, welcome to the garden of the gut. This doesn’t smell like a garden. Go play. We’ve known for some time that coffee has an impact on the gut, and in fact, a recent study showed that if you analyze the gut bacteria of a population, you can actually tell the people who drink coffee. They have a particular bacteria calleducinobacter acycroliticus that other people who don’t drink coffee don’t have. And actually, this is the first time we’ve been able to sort of match a bacterial population to one particular foodstuff. Oh, I caught one! I caught a Laucinobacter! Great. Now, the difficult bit here is to connect coffee and the gut to health outcomes. And here, I suppose we enter the realms of fringe science. Like how we shouldn’t drink coffee within the first 90 minutes of waking to prevent an afternoon crash? Alas, no. No, more like the cutting edge of science, where everything is kind of new and still being explored. Oh, proper science. There are a lot of associations between coffee consumption and positive health outcomes. comes. Things like… of new and still being explored oh proper science there are a lot of associations between coffee consumption and positive health outcomes things like reduced mortality for example and this may be the kind of why of that coffee does provide the right kind of food to these law cinnabactors and one of the things they produce that is associated with positive outcomes is something called butyrate. Hey, you’ve got a butt eye, right? Where did I bring you? Anyway, this might be why we see positive outcomes associated with decaf consumption, because even though there’s no caffeine in it, decaf does still have tons of polyphenols. No! I have phenolic compounds, not polyphenols. There’s a difference. Every time you say the wrong thing, you sound like an idiot. If you have a basic understanding of chemistry, then you can see that there’s only one aromatic ring in coffee’s phenolic compounds, and by calling them polyphenols, you cause confusion with polyphenols like flavanols. So remember, coffee has phenolic compounds. It’s got what bacteria crave. Coffee is a complex beverage full of phenolic compounds. But it’s nowhere near as complex as things like working out health outcomes. However, this might be why coffee does seem healthy for some people. So coffee maybe helps me score better on the Bristol stool chart, but it doesn’t put the kids on the express train to the pool. Dude. Actually, speaking of trains, let’s go to the train station. Welcome to the nervous system. Now, for a long time I did wonder if this whole thing, this coffee effect, was hormone-based. Oh, want to hear a joke about hormones? Absolutely not. We’re here in the nervous system because of a recent study that may well have answered our question. You see, they a study that was looking at coffee and its effect on rats and it was an interesting if slightly upsetting study. Tell me more. Well they took a piece of the gut from a live rat and then they kept that tissue alive in a special bath full of different minerals and electrolytes everything it would need to keep on living and then they added coffee to the bath and noticed that the gut began to contract that’s so gross it is now what they then did that i think is kind of clever is they added different kind of nerve inhibitors nerve blockers to the solution and kept testing until they found out which one stopped the coffee working and the one that did work was called atropine and this meant that it was inhibiting the muscarinic receptors ah part of the enteric nervous system the brain of the gut yeah now we have muscarinic receptors all over in our gut but actually in our mouths too so it may be that from the moment that you take a sip of coffee the muscarinic system is sending a signal to your gut to begin to contract and before you know it i’m giving you the compelling urge to defecate that’s right now there is another compound you may be familiar with that also triggers the muscarinic receptors in the same sort of way that is nicotine which is why people who combine the two often experience a powerful synergy synergy seems like such a polite word but yes that’s that’s the answer. And that’s what’s happening here. Our question is answered. Let’s go home. And there it is. The question answered, I hope, in a delightful way. In summary, coffee triggers a part of your nervous system and that causes your gut to contract. And thus you are given that compelling and deep, deep and powerful urge. I suppose what we don’t know is what in coffee specifically is causing this. We know it’s not caffeine, because decaf can have the same effect, and I would say that from personal experience, darker roasts are more compelling than lighter roasts. But aside from that we don’t know, now that we understand the mechanism, I would hope it’s a pretty easy question to answer. So science, we look to you for progress. If you’ve got thoughts, comments, suggestions, ideas, do share them down in the comments below. And of course, all the studies that we referenced are linked in the description too. For now… Oh, can I say it? No, it’s my thing. Can I please say it? Yes, you can say it. For now, I will say thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a great day.