Coffee brewing methods can have a significant impact on heart health

The method used to brew coffee can considerably affect natural cholesterol breeding compounds called Diterpenes, according to a new study. The way your coffee is prepared may affect your heart health.

Available on the seven continents, coffee is really a global drink. Indeed, more than 2.25 billion cups of things are consumed every day in the world. And coffee is generally assimilated to positive health benefits thanks to its bioactive compounds.

However, new research carried out by the University of Uppsala in Sweden has studied how the brewing method used to make coffee can affect natural compound level called diterpenes which can increase low density lipoproteins, also called LDL or “ bad ” Cholesterol, levels, which can, in turn, affect cardiovascular health.

“Given the amount of coffee consumed in Swedish workplaces, we wanted to obtain an image of the content of cholesterol elevation substances in the coffee of these types of machines,” said David Iggman, researcher of the university clinical and metabolism unit and the corresponding author of the study. “We studied fourteen coffee machines and could see that the levels of these substances are much higher in the coffee of these machines than by regular coffee makers.”

Previous research had already shown that boiled coffee – Turkish coffee, for example – contained high levels of the worst of these diterpenes, Cafestol and Kahweol, whose elevation properties of LDL cholesterol have been known since the 1990s. And it was known that the filter paper had removed these annoying diterpenes from boiled coffee. In 2020, a 20 -year -old Norwegian study revealed that the consumption of non -filtered coffee was associated with a higher risk of mortality due to cardiovascular causes than filtered coffee consumption. This led to the implementation in 2023 Nordic nutritional recommendations, which recommends filtered coffee as the safest choice.

For this study, researchers, aware that large amounts of coffee bearing the machine are consumed at work, aimed at determining the concentrations of diterpenes in machine cafes samples from real Swedish public spaces. They took samples from 14 machines from four health establishments, selecting the setting and standard size for a cup of infused coffee. Two samples were taken from each machine, two to three weeks apart. Of the 14 machines, 11 were preparing coffee machines and three were liquid model machines. A brewing machine makes coffee by running hot water through a ground coffee, while a liquid model machine mixes the prefabricated liquid coffee concentrate with hot water to instantly make a cup of coffee.

Additional common coffee beers have been prepared for the comparison: coffee drop -by, percolator, French press / coffee boiled coffee. The same boiled coffee has been filtered through a two-layer polyester-acrylic sock, apparently recommended to replace a paper filter. In addition to homemade beers, four espresso samples were taken from three cafeterias and a laboratory work machine.

Each sample was analyzed using liquid chromatography in tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and Cafestol and Kahweol levels were measured. Cafes from brewing machines had higher diterpenic concentrations than coffee filtered in paper, but lower than boiled coffee. Brewing Machine Coffee had a median coffee of 175.7 mg / L and a median kahweol of 141.8 mg / L. For liquid model machines, there was an aberrant sample with unusually high concentrations of Cafestol and Kahweol (344.2 mg / L and 288.2 mg / L, respectively). When this aberrant value was omitted, the average was 5.9 mg / l of Cafestol and 4.8 mg / L of Kahweol, equally with filtered paper variants. Filter of boiled coffee with a concentration of Cafestol of 939.2 mg / L thanks to a sock considerably reduced its cafestol to 28.0 mg / L. Other coffee variants had intermediate concentrations of Cafestol – between 68.7 mg / L at 91.2 mg / L – with the exception of espresso samples, which had cafestol levels 2446.7 mg / L.

“From this, we deduce that the filtering process is crucial for the presence of these cholesterol elevation substances in the cafe,” said Iggman. “Obviously, not all coffee machines manage to filter them. But the problem varies between different types of coffee machines, and the concentrations have also shown great variations over time.”

The researchers also calculated the estimated effects of diterpenes on LDL blood cholesterol. The average volume of the cup they obtained from coffee machines was 137.5 ml (4.6 FL OZ). The researchers estimated that the replacement of three cups of brewing coffee with coffee filtered in paper five days a week would reduce the LDL cholesterol by 0.58 mmol / L. For the context, they say that the effect of the diterpenes would be equivalent to the addition of 60 ml (2 fl oz) of complete cream (40%) with each cup of coffee filtered in paper.

“Most coffee samples contained levels that could affect LDL cholesterol levels of people who drank coffee, as well as their future risk of cardiovascular disease,” said Iggman. “For people who drink a lot of coffee every day, it is clear that coffee drip or another well -filtered coffee is preferable. To determine the precise effects on LDL cholesterol levels, we would need to conduct a controlled study on subjects that would drink coffee. ”

The study was published in the journal Nutrition, metabolism and cardiovascular diseases.

Source: University of Uppsala