Do you know the rule of the three C’s: coffee, cigarette, toilet?

Far from being an urban legend, the rule of the three C’s is real enough. Much like the truncated sum 1 + 1 = 3, coffee plus cigarette equals a trip to the toilet. But how does this curious combination act on the intestines? Here is the explanation.

The cigarette speeds up transit

Smoking is said to speed up intestinal transit, and the reason is straightforward. Nicotine has a direct effect on peristalsis, the term for the contractions of a hollow organ that move its contents along. Smoking after a meal, or throughout the day, therefore stimulates the contraction of the oesophagus, the stomach and then the intestine, which speeds up digestion and the evacuation of stools.

Coffee is not a laxative, but…

A reminder for anyone who had not heard: drinking coffee encourages a visit to the toilet. Caffeine increases the production of cholecystokinin, a gastric acid, the fluid that allows food to be digested. It also stimulates the chlorogenic acid in the stomach, which then dissolves the meal more quickly and allows the material the body does not want to be moved towards the exit.

That is not all. Some of the molecules contained in coffee also help the large intestine to work faster. That said, only 3 people in 10 experience a genuine laxative effect from drinking coffee. As for the idea that caffeine is what drives those trips to the toilet, it cannot be verified at all, since decaffeinated coffee has the same effect.

A coffee, a cigarette, and off you go

Taken separately, these two addictions already have their own effects on the intestines, so the combination of the two is easy to imagine. There is no mystery about why the toilet calls after breakfast, or after a meal. Coffee and the cigarette together are described as highly stimulating for the stomach and the intestines. Digestion is faster, and so is what follows.