FEATURE: by European correspondent, Oceane Duboust.
Samples taken by a Swedish team of researchers show how daily coffee drinkers may be at risk of higher cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease.
You may want to rethink that coffee on your work break and drink tea for a change. A new study by Swedish researchers has found that high levels of cholesterol-elevating substances were present in most coffee machines in workplaces.
The two substances in question are cafestol and kahweol, both found in coffee beans.
Researchers from Uppsala University, in collaboration with the Chalmers University of Technology, took samples from fourteen coffee machines in break rooms at different workplaces using five different coffee brands.
The concentrations varied depending on the machine and the time, according to the findings published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases.
Brewing machines – the most common type of coffee machine in the workplaces studied – and boiled coffee in a pot showed the highest concentration of cholesterol-elevating substances.
“From this, we infer that the filtering process is crucial for the presence of these cholesterol-elevating substances in coffee,” David Iggman, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden and the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
“Obviously, not all coffee machines manage to filter them out. But the problem varies between different types of coffee machines, and the concentrations also showed large variations over time,” he added.
“Most of the coffee samples contained levels that could feasibly affect the levels of LDL cholesterol of people who drank the coffee, as well as their future risk of cardiovascular disease”.
LDL – or low-density lipoprotein – cholesterol is often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol.
“For people who drink a lot of coffee every day, it’s clear that drip-filter coffee, or other well-filtered coffee, is preferable,” he added.
Using paper filters was found to almost completely filter out the molecules.
More research is needed to determine the precise effects on cholesterol levels among consumers, according to Iggman.
Naturally present in the body, cholesterol can become a problem if there’s too much of it.
It can build up in plaque in the walls of arteries making them arteries hard and narrow, according to the US-based Mayo Clinic.
Europe is the region with the highest prevalence of cholesterol in the world, with over 50 per cent of adults estimated to be living with higher than average levels.
According to Statista data from 2021, Lithuania had one of the highest average cholesterol levels in Europe, whereas Greece was among the lowest.
