New study finds office machine coffee could raise cholesterol: Substance known to negatively affect blood lipid profile

A new study has discovered that the way your coffee is brewed can have a real impact on the health consequences, with workplace machine coffee linked to high cholesterol.

Researchers writing in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases took samples of the coffee available in a variety of Swedish workplaces and compared it to home-made drinks. They focused on the concentration of “cholesterol-raising diterpenes” and found that the substance levels were considerably higher in the machine-made coffee.

The report explained: “Most coffees from workplace brewing machines contain higher diterpene concentrations than paper-filtered coffee, but lower than unfiltered coffee.”

“Intake of insufficiently filtered coffee during working hours could be an overlooked factor for cardiovascular health due to its effect on plasma cholesterol concentrations.”

Researchers tested 14 machines - 11 brewing machines, 3 liquid-model machines - with two samples taken from each machine every two to three weeks. They then compared the level of diterpene to samples taken from other coffee-making methods, including percolator, French press, boiled coffee and boiled coffee strained through a fabric filter.

The exact levels varied between machines and even across different samples from the same machine. However the broad finding from the study was that methods using paper filters resulted in a lower diterpene concentration that those using brewing machines. Researchers speculated that the brewing machines lack a fine filter to remove the diterpene particles.

Authors concluded the paper by saying: “Based on the concentrations of cafestol and kahweol in investigated machine coffees, thoroughly filtered coffee seems like the preferable choice for cardiovascular health. Accordingly, filtered coffee should be preferred, also in workplace settings.”

Lead researcher David Iggman explained: “From this we infer that the filtering process is crucial for the presence of these cholesterol-elevating substances in coffee. 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.”

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