In a comment to an earlier entry, Ellen noted that coffee brewed using a French press raises LDL (bad) cholesterol, while filtered coffee does not.

Here is a good summary on the topic from LeisureGuy. Quotes from experts in the field are summarized below.

Dr. Michael Klag is vice dean for clinical investigation at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

• Persons who drink unfiltered coffee should get their cholesterol checked to make sure it is not elevated.
• Not everyone needs to be overly concerned about the effect of unfiltered coffee on cholesterol.
• Cholesterol levels are a combination of how you live, what you eat, and what genes you inherit.
• A healthy person with low cholesterol probably does not need to worry too much about the effect of coffee on cholesterol levels.

Dr. Martijn B. Katan is professor at the Wageningen Center for Food Sciences and Wageningen University.

• Unfiltered coffee has much less effect on your heart-disease risk than smoking, high blood pressure, or being overweight.
• If you want to optimize your cholesterol levels, you should avoid large daily amounts of unfiltered coffee.

Dr. Elisabeth Strandhagen from Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg.

• Filtered coffee seems to have a much smaller effect on cholesterol than unfiltered coffee.

The comments come from an article on MSN Health & Fitness.

4/4/07 20:55 JR