Is that coffee good for you? It depends on how you make it
Coffee lovers rejoice: your beverage of choice is now recognised as a health-promoting staple. Theories that coffee raised the risk of coronary heart disease have been debunked: a 2022 study by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that people who sipped two to three cups a day had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and early death than those who didn't.
Such studies need to be read in context. They can't always prove 'cause and effect' as there may be something else about the coffee drinkers' lifestyle that keeps them healthy – perhaps they have better diets overall than non-coffee drinkers. It's encouraging for those who enjoy a flat white though.
Now new research shows that it's not just whether you drink coffee that matters to your health, the way you brew it can have a significant effect on your cholesterol levels and heart health too. The study, released in March from Uppsala University in Sweden and published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases found that some methods of coffee preparation can have the unwelcome outcome of raising your low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (aka LDL or 'bad' cholesterol). The researchers suggested a hierarchy of cholesterol-friendly ways of coffee preparation. At the 'bad' end lies Turkish-style boiled and some office-machine coffees, with filtered coffee coming out as the best option, and other methods somewhere in between.
Why does coffee spike your cholesterol?
Coffee does not in itself contain cholesterol. But the beans contain natural oils which include two chemical compounds called cafestol and kahweol, and it's the mechanism of these on the body that can raise cholesterol levels.
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David Iggman is a GP, and an associate professor in clinical nutrition at Uppsala University. 'Cafestol and kahweol are lipid molecules called diterpines,' he says. 'They are unique to coffee beans and have similar properties to cholesterol.'
Diterpenes interfere with the body's natural processes of cholesterol breakdown and transport, potentially leading to an increase in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, while also decreasing the 'healthy' HDL cholesterol. Scientists still don't understand exactly why this happens, but have known since the late 1990s that 'boiled' coffee, made on the stove, is particularly high in diterpenes.
'Many types of office hot drinks machines brew their coffee in a similar way to the boiled variety,' explains Iggman. 'In Swedish workplaces, there are almost mandatory breaks around these machines, and so we decided to test them.'
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