Coffee Made in Workplace Machines Is Risky for Cardiovascular Health: Study

Your coffee consumption at work may be stirring up trouble for your heart.

A new study — published in the scientific journal Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases — analyzed samples from 14 coffee machines in four different workplaces in Sweden to determine whether office coffee raises cholesterol compared to brewing coffee at home.

“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 concluded. 

This means coffee from your office machines might contain more cholesterol-raising compounds, similar to the samples in this study. 

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

Researchers studied samples from three types of office machines: brewing machines, liquid-model machines and instant machines. 

“Brewing machines produce coffee from whole or ground beans in approximately [10 to 30 seconds], as the hot water mixes with the coffee and passes a metal filter,” the study noted. “Liquid-models can provide a cup within seconds and do not use a filter, but instead mix a liquid coffee concentrate with hot water. Instant machines mixes use instant, freeze-dried coffee with hot water.”

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The researchers compared those workplace methods to other commonly used methods to brew and paper-filter coffee at home: drip-brewed coffee, percolator, French press/cafetière and boiled coffee. 

Comparing the machines to these more thoroughly filtered methods, the researchers recommended that “replacing three cups of brewing machine coffee with paper-filtered coffee five days per week was estimated to reduce LDL cholesterol” (a.k.a. bad cholesterol) over time.

Other studies have touted the benefits of coffee — in moderation — to cardiovascular, cognitive, metabolic and neurological health. 

Dr. Donald Hensrud wrote for the Mayo Clinic that “drinking coffee may be linked to a lower risk of: Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease among some groups of people; metabolic syndrome and chronic kidney disease; liver cancer and liver disease, including cirrhosis; and gallstones and kidney stones.”