Irritable Bowel Syndrome - Does Coffee Help You Poop?
Coffee, specifically caffeine, is known to be quite good at stimulating the bowels.
What caffeine actually stimulates is the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), so how and why does it stimulate the bowels too? This can possibly be answered through the concept of the brain-gut axis.
Though ultimately, is it a good idea to use coffee as a stimulant for bowel movements? Those with constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C) often find it very helpful to have a cup of coffee in the morning to help them have a bowel movement.
But is this a good idea? It definitely helps to move everything along in the intestines, but there's surely more to it than that...
To understand why constipation occurs, it's helpful to generally understand how the large intestine, or colon, works: Food that is digested in the stomach is passed along to the small intestine (where nutrients are absorbed) and moved along by muscle contractions that squeeze to push it forwards.
These muscle contractions occur naturally when matter is present and do not occur when the intestines are empty.
Once the food waste reaches the colon, water is absorbed and stool is formed.
Constipation can occur for two reasons: one being a lack of water or dietary fiber (either not enough water and/or fiber consumed or too much water absorbed by the colon) and the other if the colon's muscle contractions are slow or sluggish (resulting in the stool traveling through the colon too slowly and excess water being absorbed).
Over a long enough period of time of regularly taking a laxative (caffeine, for example) to stimulate the bowels, the "bowel muscles may start to resist the stimulation and become lazy" [1].
In fact, this is true for any muscle in the body: constant stimulation of a muscle in the same way, over and again, will make the muscle lazy (see also Juicing Vegetables).
A so-called lazy bowel then becomes dependent on additional stimulation for a bowel movement to occur and becomes slow and sluggish on its own.
Bowel movements that are stimulated by caffeine or other laxatives are also commonly loose and not well-formed since some of the stool being passed is not actually ready to do so.
So we return to the original question: is it a good idea to use coffee as a stimulant for bowel movements? In the short term, it seems so, since it gets out what needs to get out.
In the long term however (say, after 20 years have passed) it turns out to not be the best idea.
The good news is that there are numerous other ways to stimulate the bowels without the use of stimulants or laxatives.
These include fiber supplements, increasing water intake and exercise.
Another is l-glutamine, which is an amino acid that is found in abundance in the intestinal walls.
L-glutamine helps to strengthen the muscles in the intestinal walls and will therefore help with the muscle contractions required for healthy bowel movements.
References [1] Stickney-Lee, Jennifer.
Family Health 20.
1 (Spring 2004): 25,27.
"Keep your bowels moving: avoiding constipation"
What caffeine actually stimulates is the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), so how and why does it stimulate the bowels too? This can possibly be answered through the concept of the brain-gut axis.
Though ultimately, is it a good idea to use coffee as a stimulant for bowel movements? Those with constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C) often find it very helpful to have a cup of coffee in the morning to help them have a bowel movement.
But is this a good idea? It definitely helps to move everything along in the intestines, but there's surely more to it than that...
To understand why constipation occurs, it's helpful to generally understand how the large intestine, or colon, works: Food that is digested in the stomach is passed along to the small intestine (where nutrients are absorbed) and moved along by muscle contractions that squeeze to push it forwards.
These muscle contractions occur naturally when matter is present and do not occur when the intestines are empty.
Once the food waste reaches the colon, water is absorbed and stool is formed.
Constipation can occur for two reasons: one being a lack of water or dietary fiber (either not enough water and/or fiber consumed or too much water absorbed by the colon) and the other if the colon's muscle contractions are slow or sluggish (resulting in the stool traveling through the colon too slowly and excess water being absorbed).
Over a long enough period of time of regularly taking a laxative (caffeine, for example) to stimulate the bowels, the "bowel muscles may start to resist the stimulation and become lazy" [1].
In fact, this is true for any muscle in the body: constant stimulation of a muscle in the same way, over and again, will make the muscle lazy (see also Juicing Vegetables).
A so-called lazy bowel then becomes dependent on additional stimulation for a bowel movement to occur and becomes slow and sluggish on its own.
Bowel movements that are stimulated by caffeine or other laxatives are also commonly loose and not well-formed since some of the stool being passed is not actually ready to do so.
So we return to the original question: is it a good idea to use coffee as a stimulant for bowel movements? In the short term, it seems so, since it gets out what needs to get out.
In the long term however (say, after 20 years have passed) it turns out to not be the best idea.
The good news is that there are numerous other ways to stimulate the bowels without the use of stimulants or laxatives.
These include fiber supplements, increasing water intake and exercise.
Another is l-glutamine, which is an amino acid that is found in abundance in the intestinal walls.
L-glutamine helps to strengthen the muscles in the intestinal walls and will therefore help with the muscle contractions required for healthy bowel movements.
References [1] Stickney-Lee, Jennifer.
Family Health 20.
1 (Spring 2004): 25,27.
"Keep your bowels moving: avoiding constipation"
