An article from the New Atlas online magazine, citing a study carried out by researchers from the University of Uppsala in Sweden and published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases,, reports that, depending on your infusion method, coffee can be dangerous for your health. The way it is prepared could actually affect the levels of diterpenes it conceals, natural organic compounds that would increase LDL cholesterol (also called bad cholesterol) … and therefore threaten your cardiovascular health.
Coffee – which also has many advantages for your health – should be prepared according to specific methods. Previous research has for example shown that boiled coffee – as Turkish coffee – contained high concentrations of two particularly harmful diterpenes, Cafestol and Kahwéol, known to increase the LDL cholesterol levels. In addition, a Norwegian study carried out over a twenty -year period concluded that drinking unremitted coffee increased the risk of cardiovascular mortality. These results led to the adoption of new nutritional recommendations in 2023.
The more recent research of Swedish scientists has analyzed the properties of coffee according to different infusion methods, including that of coffee machines, commonly used in business. They thus removed samples from 14 machines distributed in four health establishments, using the setting and the standard format of an infused cup of coffee.
The good old coffee filter
Each sample was then analyzed to measure the levels of Cafestol and Kahweol. The result is final: cafes from machines contained more diterpenes than coffee filtered on paper, but less than boiled coffee, which is definitely the bad student of the class.
The researchers also estimated the impact of diterpenes on bad cholesterol. According to their calculations, replacing three cups of coffee from a machine with filtered coffee on paper, five days a week, could reduce the 0.58 mmol/l LDL cholesterol (millimole per liter). To give a point of comparison, they indicate that the effect of diterpenes on cholesterol would be similar to that of the addition of 60 milliliters of whole cream in each cup of filtered coffee.
For David Iggman, one of the authors of the Swedish study, the conclusions are clear and clear: “We deduce that the filtering process is crucial for the presence of these substances increasing cholesterol in coffee. Obviously, not all coffee machines manage to filter them, but the problem varies depending on the type of machine, and the concentrations have also shown significant variations over time. ”
“For people who drink a lot of coffee every day, it is clear that the filter coffee, or any other well -filtered coffee, is preferable”concludes the researcher. A lover of good caoua, you are warned.
