I came across a story about coffee a few days ago. Here is the link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6747192/

If you don't want to try to read a more academic article, I'll summarize it. Basically there are two chemicals present in coffee, Cafestol and Kahweol, which can significantly raise your cholesterol and triglycerides. If you already have high cholesterol, they can raise it dangerously high.

That's bad.

The good news is that paper filters remove most of these chemicals. While filtered coffee can raise cholesterol, it is not a significant increase in the absence of these chemicals.

That's good.

These days, however, a lot of people use metal filters instead of paper, such as with the metal filter on an Aeropress or in a French Press. This kind of "unfiltered" experience has gained a lot of popularity as people assume it will produce a better taste. These metal filters don't remove Cafestol and Kahweol. Needless to say if you consume completely unfiltered coffee such as in Turkish Coffee, you are exposed to these chemicals even more intensely.

That's bad.

The research so far on these chemicals is quite promising, showing that they might have a host of great health benefits, including: anti-inflammatory, liver-protective, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and anti-osteoporosis effects. Wow.

That's good.

These effects are unproven and are only suspected. (Rather, the results are based on in vitro (test tube) and in vivo (animal) research, not on humans trials.) More research is needed to be sure. The only thing we do know for sure if that they raise cholesterol.

That's bad.

So yeah, kind of a double-edged sword. I suppose the takeaway is that if you have low-cholesterol and drink unfiltered or metal filtered coffee, you might possibly be getting some benefit, but if you already have high-cholesterol, you might not want to risk it.

Interesting, these two chemicals (Cafestol and Kahweol) significantly raising cholesterol is not unknown. Most doctors are well aware of it, but they usually don't mention it to people because the assumption has always been that people mainly use paper filters that filter these chemicals out, so it's not worth bringing up, especially since people love their coffee and might become hostile if it's suggested they give it up.

Doctors may not mention it, but alternative health books bring it up sometimes. @opidia mentioned to me about this a while ago when she was encouraging me to stop drinking coffee and I've seen it mentioned several places since then.

As I was reading this paper, I was reminded of a Simpsons bit. You can see reflections of the bit in what I wrote above. To more closely mimic the Simpsons bit, I might shorten things to:

Paper: Coffee contains two chemicals which can significantly raise your cholesterol!
Me: That's bad.
Paper: But normal paper filters remove them.
Me: That's good.
Paper: These days most people use metal filters which don't remove them.
Me: That's bad.
Paper: But they may have anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and other good properties.
Me: That's good.
Paper: These properties are unproven.
Me: Can I go now?

Here's the exchange I'm referencing:

I probably hadn't seen that clip since it aired over 30 years ago. Funny how it stuck in my head all these years.

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.