Drinking Coffee Linked With Higher Cholesterol

 

Drinking espresso coffee is associated with increased blood cholesterol levels, a new study suggests.

Drinking 3 to 5 cups of espresso each day was significantly linked to increased total cholesterol levels for men and women, compared to those who did not drink espresso. 

Other findings showed similar increases in total cholesterol for both sexes from boiled or plunger coffee. Drinking 6 or more cups of plunger/boiled coffee each day was linked with greater serum total cholesterol for men and women, compared with people who did not drink any coffee prepared this way. 

"There have been several studies that showed an association with unfiltered coffee and increases in total cholesterol," says Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health. "The chemicals that mediate this increase are dipterenes, cafestol and kahweol.” 

Meanwhile, drinking filtered coffee was linked to increased total cholesterol only for women. For women, drinking 6 or more cups of filtered coffee each day was linked with total cholesterol levels, but this increase was not found among men.

David Kao, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, suggests using fewer high-fat dairy products in coffee: "For example, changing to plant-based substitutes might be helpful if whitening coffee is a habit." 

The researchers also found that drinking instant coffee was associated with higher cholesterol than not drinking instant coffee for both men and women.