7 of the weirdest things coffee does to your body

Jean-Louis Aubert/Unsplash Coffee is best known, and perhaps most valued, for its caffeine and its ability to make us feel more awake and alert.

But coffee is much more than caffeine dissolved in hot water.

Coffee is a chemically complicated plant extract containing hundreds of bioactive compounds .

These can have all kinds of weird and wonderful effects in your body, even when you’re drinking decaf.

Here are seven of the strangest.

1.

Coffee can make you poo One study shows about three in ten people say they get the urge to poo shortly after drinking coffee.

This happens quickly, and with both regular and decaf.

So it’s down to more than just the caffeine.

But it’s not clear exactly which coffee compounds cause this.

Your colon can also be more active in the morning , and this is when most people drink their first coffee.

What you add to your coffee can also affect your bowels.

The lactose in milk or some sugar-free sweeteners can also get the bowels moving, particularly if you consume a lot.

Read more: Why do I poo in the morning? A gut expert explains 2.