22 comments
Coffee modifies physiology and cognition? You're telling me this for the first time.
The paper is about previously unknown ways coffee affects the body.
Humans known since 45 minutes after first drink
I was so surprised at this headline that I nearly leapt out of my chair!
I’m super interested in this sort of study! However, it looks like n=62 here, which I think weakens the results —they’re probably just useful as suggestions of possible effects. Also, any food is expected to have similar effects on the microbiome. They didn’t test caffeine in isolation. In some ways that’s better (I don’t consume caffeine in isolation), but in some ways that’s less useful (it’s possible you get similar results from many random vegetables)
In 1995, NASA did spiders experiment. Caffeine is a siginificant impulsivity trigger. :)
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nasa-spiders-drugs-experime...
What's cool is this effect exists even in decaf coffee, as someone who primarily drinks decaf black, for flavor and for a good night's rest as I'm sensitive to caffeine.
I have not much followed the science of gut microbiome and psychology. Is this really going where this article is pointing? That we can tease out causation in foods and habits via gut microbiome towards behavior and psychology? Pretty rad.
There's a decent amount of research going into the hormones that our GI biome produce and how it affects us. Our body has a few different biomes and they all seem to play somewhat important roles.
Yeah there's nontrivial evidence that among other things, the complex community living inside you manipulates your brain.
My psychiatrists agree that “hallucination” (in lay terms: “hearing voices” or “seeing things”) only refers to things that aren’t real.
At least subjectively, coffee seems to help my memory. But maybe that's why I started drinking coffee?
I would probably drop coffee it was proven to have negative effects on memory.
> But maybe that's why I started drinking coffee?
you don't remember why, do you?
"These findings reveal previously unrecognised effects of coffee on the microbiota–gut–brain axis, suggesting that microbiome profiles could potentially predict coffee consumption patterns", or, perhaps, just ask the patient?
Could you elaborate on how to interpret your comment without it leading to anti-intellectualism?
It was a joke
You are missing the point.
If you can predict someone's coffee intake based on testing of their microbiome then you've proven that coffee intake has predictable effects on the microbiome.
The important part isn't predicting coffee use, it's just the proof that there's you can predict and perhaps control in the opposite direction leading to more research.
> ... reintroduction triggered acute microbiome changes independent of caffeine.
This sounds interesting. I've never really considered the constituents of coffee other than caffeine and what unique effects they may bring.
I wonder if I would experience behavioral effects if I replaced my coffee intake with caffeinated non-coffee drinks or pills?
Studies seem to indicate that coffee is at least as healthy, if not healthier than tea, and I have not heard this about caffeine specifically (aka the same effects coming from pills or energy drinks).
One fun fact: we still haven’t figured out why coffee makes us poop. We’ve studied every chemical in there and can’t seem to find a link, but the association is uh… well-known.
The only good thing that keeps me from collapsing into a state of limbo is coffee and now, even that's bad (seems more like a mixed bag, but still)? Sigh.
There have been positive and negative reports for a long long time. If coffee was going to kill us, I’d certainly have died in school!
Coffee in general is unreasonably healthy as a beverage. The overwhelming majority of science agrees it’s a quality health drink.