Coffee appears to perk up the digestive system after surgery, new research shows.
The study, carried out at University Hospital Heidelberg in Germany, found patients who drank coffee after surgery to remove a part of their colon had a quicker return to bowel movements and tolerance of solid food than those who drank water.
The findings, published in the surgical journal BJS, are based on a comparison of 80 patients — half of whom drank coffee and half of whom drank water after surgery.
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"Post-operative bowel obstruction is a common problem after abdominal surgery and the aim of this study was to test our theory that coffee would help to alleviate this," said lead researcher Dr. Sascha Müller.
"This randomized trial showed that the time to first bowel movement after surgery was much shorter in the coffee drinkers than the water drinkers.”


About half the patients had colonic cancer, 28 percent had diverticular disease, 13 percent had inflammatory bowel disease, and four percent had other conditions. The majority had open surgery (61 percent) and the remainder had laparoscopic surgery.