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I've heard that coffee can raise your cholesterol. If that's true, is it a bad thing? Is regular or acute exposure to coffee dangerous in this way?

Grant Miller
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speedfranklin
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1 Answers1

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Coffee beans contain a chemical called cafestol, which tends to increase blood cholesterol levels, especially LDL ("bad") cholesterol.

Brewing with a paper filter seems to reduce the levels of these cholesterol-raising chemicals in brewed coffee by filtering out these chemicals (e.g., cafestol, kahweol). Levels of cafestol in coffee are higher in non-paper-filtered brewing methods, such as French press and others.

Here's one article that discusses this, and another pointed out by @apaul34208 in comments.

EDIT: Links to actual studies. Here are two studies that discuss this further: one from van Dusseldorp, et al., 1991 that talks about "a factor" (i.e., an as-yet-unidentified compound) that has a cholesterol-raising impact. A later paper (Urgent, Katan 1997) identifies these factors as "diterpene lipids cafestol and kahweol". Specifically, the abstract from the latter article states that "[paper] filtered coffee does not affect cholesterol."

hoc_age
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  • I just read that article and a couple of others and was typing something out, but you beat me to the post. +1 – apaul Feb 10 '15 at 14:11
  • @apaul34208 Have we already reached the FGITW problem on [coffee.se] already?? ;-) Feel free to add more links if you've got a better reference. The cafestol Wikipedia page refers to a study that seems to discuss levels in paper-filtered coffee and gender differences, but it's a dead-link and I didn't immediately find a proper replacement reference. Ultimately, I believe the compound has the effect, but I have no idea about the scientific basis for any of the rest. Coffee+Science->Fun – hoc_age Feb 10 '15 at 14:45
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    9 hours would be a pretty slow gun fight :) The Harvard article was the best one I found, NBC had a decent one as well. – apaul Feb 10 '15 at 14:53
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    @apaul34208 Good article and references; hadn't seen that one. As an aside, you may wish to trim the tracking part of a URL (the trailing #.VNoas...) when you copy/paste links, when you post. Probably harmless, but if the link still works without it, all the better. – hoc_age Feb 10 '15 at 19:29
  • Can you address whether the increase in LDL cholesterol levels is necessarily detrimental or even significant? – speedfranklin Feb 10 '15 at 20:41
  • @speedfranklin - It sounds like you're asking if LDL increase is detrimental; I'm a coffee enthusiast, not a doctor... (sorry; bad ST:TOS reference) :). Significance falls in two categories: the aforementioned Wikipedia article states that there is evidence for (1- statistically speaking) significant LDL increase with consumption of "boiled coffee" but negligible with filter coffee. References are listed on that page. The other (NBC) article suggests deciding on your own whether this is (2- practically speaking) significant for you. – hoc_age Feb 10 '15 at 21:28
  • @speedfranklin - You might also ask about LDL physiology at [biology.se], or support this health site proposal at [area51.se]. You'll need to speak to someone medically qualified to address health questions. – hoc_age Feb 10 '15 at 21:33
  • @hoc_age I meant the first kind of significant, and: "there is evidence of statistically significant LDL increase with consumption of 'boiled coffee'" is exactly what I was looking for, thanks. :) – speedfranklin Mar 31 '15 at 01:09