Given it's still a mystery, could an enterprising PhD student or prof could make this their primary research focus, formulate a plausible explanation, get published in an academic journal, communicate their findings to the lay audience via an insubstantive book on the subject that would have been better off as an article in The New Yorker or something, and subsequently appear on the Huberman podcast to talk about how to optimize caffeine consumption for optimal defecation?
I really thought I'd read something about 'when it's hot you're sipping more than gulping, so you're swallowing more often and swallowing starts some muscle mechanics chain that helps your intestines push food out'. Similar to feeling you need to go when you've started eating.
Reading the article and all the comments about HN's bowel movements on a variety of stimulants, I guess I misunderstood or it was disproved...
Well if the answer is they’re not sure here’s my guess-
Since caffeine puts our body on high alert, it wants to dump excess weight we are carrying in case we need to taunt in some cases or lose aggro in other cases.
Probably why we get dehydrated and poop off the weight, so we can make our final stand.
But these days it’s just so we can deal with stupid ass meetings and annoying managers.
But doesn't coffee contain 10 to 100X the amount of caffeine than say a bottle of soda? I always thought you had to go to the bathroom after drinking coffee because coffee had so much caffeine. But that's purely conjecture. Makes me also wonder whether caffeine is toxic if your body wants to expel it. More conjecture.
No, not usually.
Soda tends to be about 30mg of caffeine per serving, a cup of coffee or tea is between 60 and 120mg, and energy drinks are generally 140 to 200mg, though some energy drinks like Bang have up to 300mg of caffeine per can.
Personal anecdote:
For me coffee has a laxative effect which I don't get to the same degree when drinking strong tea or energy drinks with very high caffeine levels.
Also, while some energy drinks are associated with laxative effects, it is often attributed to other supplements, such as taurine. (Red Bull even briefly had a laxative warning for some time because of its high dose of taurine, before the FDA refined the guidance on that as taurine is not universally a laxative, just some people are more affected by it than others.)
Doesn’t explain why it’s a morning phenomenon for the most part. I imagine most people aren’t hightailing it to the toilet once they drink a cup of coffee no matter the time of the day.
I recently experimented with nicotine tablets and noticed that they also had a similar laxative effect as caffeine at 3-4mg within the space of an hour.
