Grounds for concern as cafetiere coffee raises risk of heart disease

COFFEE drinkers who want to lower the threat of heart disease should ditch their cafetieres and switch to filter coffee, researchers have advised.

Norwegian scientists looked at how various types of coffee affected the production of cholesterol – which has been shown to cause heart disease – by analysing the blood of more than 20,000 people who were asked about their coffee consumption.

Possible quantity responses were: none; one or two cups; three to five; or more than five cups a day.

Coffee type responses could be: none; filtered; cafetiere; espresso from a machine or pods; and instant. There was no standard cup size in the research.

Women who took part drank an average of fewer than four cups of coffee a day, on average, the scientists found, while men drank almost five.

The three to five cups per day cohort covered the average intake of men and women and for this group filter coffee was found to increase cholesterol the least – 0.04 and 0.07 mmol per litre increases for men and women, respectively, above a baseline set by those who did not drink any coffee.

‘Differences are small … but they can have considerable consequences because of the high consumption of coffee’

Cafetiere coffee increased cholesterol by 0.25 for men and 0.18 mmol per litre for women. Espresso machine coffee increased cholesterol by 0.16 and 0.09mmol per litre and instant coffee registered 0.08 and 0.1 for men and women, respectively.

The differences are small but significant, researchers said, adding: “Because of the high consumption of coffee, even small effects can have considerable health consequences. Our findings regarding boiled/plunger coffee are the same as in the 1980s, pointing toward results being generalisable.”

They said in their paper, published in the journal Open Heart: “This supports previous health recommendations to reduce intake of boiled/plunger coffee.”

The scientists said that cholesterolraising chemicals, such as diterpenes, cafestol and kahweol, were present in all types of coffee, but different brewing methods determined their concentration in the end product.

The researchers were unable to explain why men’s cholesterol levels were affected to a greater extent than women’s.

But Prof Tom Sanders, of King’s College London, who was not involved in the study, said the discrepancy was more likely to be due to differences in coffee drinking behaviour than a physiological difference.