Overview
- The University of Copenhagen study, which was reported Wednesday, found habitual coffee drinkers had greater gut bacterial diversity and higher abundance of specific taxa such as Lawsonibacter and Slackia.
- Fifty participants swallowed a SmartPill® that recorded pH, pressure and contractions and the researchers saw lower small‑intestine pH and more colon contractions in frequent coffee drinkers while overall transit time stayed similar.
- The team paired objective measures of coffee intake—urinary caffeine metabolites—with stool analysis and SmartPill data across 61 healthy adults monitored for nine days.
- Authors stress the study is observational and cannot prove causation and they recommend randomized intervention trials that control coffee intake to test direct effects on gut physiology.
- If causal, the link could point to a non‑drug way to stimulate gut motility for people with constipation but the findings are limited by small sample size, a short monitoring window, and unclear health implications of lower small‑intestine pH.