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COFFEE CAN SOMETIMES make you want to poo.

That’s a universally recognised fact.

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The condition is said to affect 30% of people, but we have questions. Like why?

A new video produced by the American Chemical Society seeks to answer that very question.

First of all, it’s nothing to do with caffeine as people who need to run to the toilet after drinking a cup of coffee have experienced the same phenomenon after drinking a cup of decaf.

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Instead, research indicates that the acidic nature of coffee leads to increased levels of gastric acid and chlorogenic acid in your stomach.

Chlorogenic acid is a compound that increases stomach acid levels and causes the stomach to “dump its contents more quickly into the intestine”.

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Moreover, coffee increases the production of two hormones, gastrin and cholecystokinin.

Gastrin gets your colon going and speeds up the process of peristalsis, a term used to describe the “relaxation and contraction of muscles” that helps move, er, waste through your body.

Cholecystokinin, meanwhile, helps regulates your poos.

Lovely.

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In conclusion, scientists have not been able to successfully identify exactly which chemical in coffee causes the s**ts.

But they are pretty confident that it’s something to do with one of the 1,000 compounds present in coffee.

So now.

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