Unlike a staggering 63 percent of the UK population, actress Claire Foy doesn’t ever drink coffee - and the reason why may surprise you.
The Crown favourite, 41, recently appeared on the popular mother-daughter food podcast, Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware, to intimately discuss her health, reveal her dream meal (her mother’s spaghetti bolognese), and her penchant for a Cosmopolitan cocktail.
The actress also used the episode, which was published on Wednesday (4 February) to reveal she’d been forced to give up coffee five years ago.
It was reported by ITV earlier this year that a whopping 81 of people drink more than one coffee every day during work hours - meaning Foy’s abstinence would be a nightmare for many.
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Benefits of drinking caffeine include: enhanced alertness, improved cognitive function, and lowering the risk of developing heart failure.
However, side effects, such as anxiety, irritability, and heartburn are also prevalent.
Speaking about why she’d gone cold turkey on the hot drink, The Wolf Hall alumna said: “Quite a few years ago, I had parasites.
“Gross. I kept losing weight and I didn’t know what was going on.”
Foy said she’d picked up the infection while in Morocco, adding: “I basically had to go on this diet and because I didn’t want to take really hardcore antibiotics and stuff like that, I took all this little gross stuff, and part of that was giving up caffeine.”
When asked how long she thought she had the parasites in her system for, she replied that it was ‘at least five years’.
Foy also said she’d ceased consuming gluten and sugar because of an autoimmune condition she has.
“This is my big secret, I feel like I’m in The Traitors or something, and I’m letting everyone know that I’m related to someone,” she lamented to Jessie, 41, and Lennie, 74.
“I don’t actually eat gluten or sugar… except when I go out for dinner. It doesn’t have an impact on me. It’s just because I have an autoimmune condition, so I should avoid anything which causes more inflammation.”
Foy’s Table Manners appearance comes just weeks after she told The Sunday Times that when she was younger, she believed she would ‘never make it past 40’.
“I have had many medical things in my life. But, yes, I’m still here and someone once told me, ‘You know, most people live?’ They meant most people live quite a long and lovely life,” she confessed to the publication.
“Well, not necessarily lovely. But people do tend to live. That’s what humans want to do. We want to survive, and that’s quite reassuring.”
The mother-of-one’s latest film, H For Hawk, is currently in cinemas.
Her upcoming Paramount Pictures project, Savage House, is set to release this year.
Ella Scott