Coffe after surgery?

Most patients usually experience "sleepy bowel" after surgery.  Doctors call this postoperative ileus.   The symptoms usually are low appetite, nausea after eating, sometimes vomiting and delayed bowel movement. 

 

Muller randomized 80 patients into two groups: one group were fed water and the other were fed coffe after abdominal/laparascopic surgery.  The patients who drank coffe seemed to resolved their postoperative ileus sooner.  After drinking coffe, they tolerate solid food in 49 hours vs 56 hours who drank water.  The time to tolerance of solid food (49·2(21·3) versus 55·8(30·0) h; P = 0·276) and time to first flatus (40·6(16·1) versus 46·4(20·1) h; P = 0·214) showed a similar trend, but the differences were not significant. Length of hospital stay (10·8(4·4) versus 11·3(4·5) days; P = 0·497)

 

It is an interesting study but I don't usually have patient staying 10 to 11 days in hospital after surgery.

 

Reference:

Muller SA, et al.  Randomized clinical trial on the effect of coffee on postoperative ileus following elective colectomy.  Br J Surg. 2012 Nov;99(11):1530-8. Epub 2012 Sep 14.