Study Links Cholesterol And Coffee Higher Levels Found In Those Who Drink Java Unfiltered

Coffee drinkers beware: There may be grounds for concern brewing in the bottom of your cup of java.

Unfiltered brews such as French press, espresso and Turkish coffee have higher amounts of a substance known as cafestol, and people who regularly drank unfiltered coffee experienced an increase in their cholesterol levels, a small study suggests.

Coffee that passes through a paper filter to remove the cafestol may be easier on the heart and blood vessels, researchers said Wednesday. To coffee connoisseurs they offer this bit of heresy: Instant is even better, health-wise if not tastewise, because the cafestol is squeezed out of the crystals at the factory.

“Some people have high cholesterol and drink certain types of coffee that aren’t good for them,” said Dr. Robert Urgert of Wageningen Agricultural University in the central Netherlands, where the study was done.

“Fortunately, most people drink filtered coffee,” Urgert said. “But there’s still a lot of ‘cafeteria coffee’ out there that isn’t filtered.”

The study examined 46 people over a six-month period; 24 drinking filtered coffee and 22 taking their coffee unfiltered.

Numerous studies in recent years have examined coffee, and none has established a meaningful link between drinking it and developing heart disease. However, most of those studies were done in the United States and involved filtered coffee, said Dr. Walter C. Willett of Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, espresso and unfiltered coffee are hugely popular, and more Americans are drinking them as Europeanstyle coffees and French plunger-style pots with metal filters take hold.

“By itself, this doesn’t make a big impact,” said Willett, who was not involved in the Dutch study. “But you take 10 or 15 of these small things and together they can add up.”

Cafestol is naturally present in coffee beans and is extracted by hot water. Even a few tenths of a milligram of cafestol ingested daily can significantly raise bloodstream cholesterol levels, and a single cup of unfiltered coffee contains three to four milligrams, the Dutch study said.

Researchers monitored the levels of low-density lipoprotein - the so-called bad cholesterol known popularly as LDL - in people drinking unfiltered coffee regularly over a six-month period.

Their findings: Subjects who drank five or more cups daily had, on average, 5 percent higher LDL levels than those in a control group who drank filtered coffee.

That’s not a dangerous rise in cholesterol, but it’s significant because it signals a corresponding 10 percent to 15 percent increased risk of heart disease, said Harvard’s Willett.