If you are doing everything right to lower your cholesterol so you won't have to go on statin drugs, check out the coffee you've been drinking. The culprit for raising your cholesterol could be the kind of coffee you're drinking and how much of it you have.
Apparently unfiltered coffee tends to increase cholesterol levels.
Most American style coffee, the drip style, in which the coffee grounds come in contact with hot water only briefly before passing through a paper filer, isn't the bad guy. It's the European style, the Espresso and French=press coffee, that are being implicated.
If trips to the coffee shop are part of your daily routine, you may want to curtail them. At the very least, give it a try for a few months. If you can lower your cholesterol because you're off unfiltered coffee and do not have to take statin medications, you are so far ahead of the game.
That's what I did. I love, love very strong coffee and espresso. I now buy coffee by the pound to use at home and put it in a percolator coffee maker using a paper filter. I lowered my LDL cholesterol enough so that it's not a problem. Once in a while I give myself a treat and get the real stuff at the coffee shop.
Here's how it works.
One of the diterpene compounds in coffee beans, cafestol, is responsible for the cholesterol-raising effect. The longer the coffee grounds come in contact with the brewing water and the hotter the water, the more diterpenes are released. The longer the coffee grounds come in contact with the brewing water and the hotter the water.
Scandinavian-style boiled coffee has the most diterpenes followed by French-press and then espresso. Drip coffee has no effect because the paper filter traps the compounds. Percolated and instant coffees also have very little amounts. Decaffeinating coffee does not reduce diterpenes.
It takes a lot of coffee to have an effect, something like four 5-ounce cups of French press coffee each day over 4 weeks will raise cholesterol about 8 percent. Keep in mind that cappuccinos or lattes are often made with expresso so keep those in your count.
If this is something you've tried, let us know your story - your success and your flops.
To your successful aging,
Ruthan Brodsky
