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Study: filtered coffee easier on heart than unfiltered
Web posted June 13, 1997
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 Dutch study has found.
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 taste-wise, 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 European-style 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.
``This is a small risk. But if you can reduce your cholesterol level by a minor adjustment in the way you prepare your coffee, that's worthwhile,'' he said. ``It doesn't cost anything and may have some benefits.''
The Dutch research, published in the British Medical Journal, sheds new light on studies in the early 1980s by Norwegian researchers, who found a link between coffee consumption and cholesterol levels. In much of Scandinavia, it turns out, coffee is traditionally brewed the Turkish way by boiling grounds several times in unfiltered water.
Espresso also contains cafestol, though the effect is muted by the smaller amounts typically served in tiny cups, the study found. Even so, tossing back five of those a day can raise cholesterol levels by 2 percent, the researchers said.
Joost Blom, savoring a cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe near Amsterdam's main train station, was defiant. As far as he's concerned, they can have his mug of coffee when they pry his cold, dead fingers from it.
``I don't want to hear it,'' he said.
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