eli5 – if it takes 12 hours to digest food, how come eating certain foods can cause an immediate bowel response?
In: 5
It depends on what it is. Compounds in coffee stimulate muscles in the GI tract, some studies say it’s a coincidence, others that it stimulates acid production in the stomach. The actual answer is a bit unknown and depends what source is used.
For things like spicy foods or alcohol which have disproportionally fast responses it is because your digestive system is connected. Normally, liquid is absorbed in the large intestine. If something disturbs the entire system like in the stomach it kind of hits the “[We need to drop the load](https://youtu.be/LympZCCRRCU?t=8)” button. This pushes the entire system along and evacuates whatever was being absorbed in the large intestine for immediate release.
Immediate release is beneficial if something is irritating since that means the GI tract has space to move it along as fast as possible.
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