Just had my blood work done this morning for the quarterly check of my cholesterol levels. They were elevated before I reinstituted my espresso habit, and I doubt that the espresso has much of an effect good or bad. My Dr. pushed statins but I wanted to try a more natural approach. Dietary changes and an hour in the gym five days a week resulted in 20+ fewer pounds to carry around and slightly better Hdl and LDL levels but not in line. Giving in to statins resulted in weight gain and pain in muscles and joints for me. I have switched to a natural statin found in red yeast rice, and continued the dietary improvements and exercise. More importantly I continue to drink espresso. Last blood work showed improvement, I hope today's check does as well. In the mean time, I think that I'll try some of the 49mm Espresso beans that were just delivered.

Unfortunately I've had to pay too much attention to cholesterol and remedies for it. Please check with your doctor, I'm not an M.D., so I can only report a few benefits and concerns from my personal experience.

Jim's right. Niacin can help many people and seems to be one of those old remedies that's very effective. I take about 1 gm/day and forget where I read about it but was told to take regular niacin, not the no-flush kind. Had to gradually increase the dose to get to current level. I've tried several statins and also take a small amount of red yeast rice, which, I believe, contains a mix of statins we get in prescriptions. My doctor has cautioned me to not overdo it on red yeast rice as this would effectively increase the dose of statins I'm taking beyond what's prescribed. Some prescription statins caused me difficulties. Their effects can actually differ. For example, I've been fine with lovastatin but atorvastatin (Lipitor) seemed to cause a slight malaise and then resulted in bizarre dreams on the one night I took it (!), a rare side effect described in the sheet.

Both statins and niacin tend to suppress my platelet count, so I occasionally have to take holidays from each and have changed statins to try and ameliorate that issue. Reduced platelet count is a known side effect. The platelets then rebound and I get back on the niacin and statins.

There are other more dangerous side effects from statins, and one of these can be indicated by muscle aches, so please check with your doctor immediately if that occurs.

I still take statins and niacin because with exercise they bring my cholesterol to ideal levels, but even that is no guarantee against atherosclerosis. Many of us have probably known people with low cholesterol who still have cardiovascular events. This whole area seems to be one that researchers are still figuring out.

No, I am not a doctor, but follow the link if interested in your cholesterol levels.

For everyone who is concerned about what we eat and drink and how it effects our cholesterol, obesity and heart may want to listen to Dr. Esselstyn and his studies on heart disease. He says we can eliminate obesity and heart disease in USA, if we are willing to change what goes into our mouth. Not sure what he says about coffee.

Past President Bill Clinton recently took Dr. Esselstyn's advice. Take time to Listen and you Decide.

I cut out my cappuccinos (eliminates all milk) and drink Americano's and straight Espresso. My total cholesterol is under 150 at last check. A Vegan.

http://www.heartattackproof.com/

Hi Wendell,

On the surface of things Dr. Esselstyn's program looks very similar to Dean Ornish's and John MacDougall's very low fat diets, which also rely mostly on vegetarian foods. For me this works very well. I read somewhere, though, that there are some people who tend to get elevated triglycerides that can worsen with a very low fat diet. I believe the Berkeley HeartLab blood screening test (see: http://www.bhlinc.com/ ) can identify many such risk factors to help guide dietary changes, but that's from when I last checked, which was about 2003. Others may have more current information about diet, testing and such. I hope we're not wandering too far off the thread of coffee and cholesterol but appreciate your pointing readers in this direction.

The biggest factor in reducing cholesterol and improving the serum lipid profile that I've seen in the research is the reduction of calories consumed.
Low fat diets work, high fat diets work. Whatever you can stick to.

Unless, of course, you have familial hypercholesterolaemia... then the only thing worth bothering with is trying to stay healthy and using the drugs.

another_jim wrote:Niacin did the trick for my HDL, which is now around 80. A Mediterranean diet only sent it from the mid 40s to the mid 50s.

I tried Niacin to improve my cholesterol, back in 1997. Niacin also raised my HDL a lot - and it also lowered my LDL a great deal - better numbers than the statins that I tried ...... But, alas, niacin shot up my liver enzymes so high that my doctor suggested, it would be safer if I used a statin instead for my cholesterol problems. The statins I have used over the last 13 years also raise my liver enzymes somewhat - but not nearly as high as the niacin. (I get my blood tested about once a year.) My experience suggests that if you try any of these cholesterol remedies - get your blood checked for any adverse reactions with your liver function.

I was never willing to try giving up coffee - in order to see if that lowered my cholesterol. Generally, I eat healthy enough and regularly exercise - the cholesterol problem seems likely a genetic predisposition.

Howard

It would suck big time if I ever, Coffee-Gods forbid, have to stop doing this hobby, or any of the other things I immensely enjoy in life. Sometimes the thought of risking my arteries for this hobby (daily reading forums, doing modifications, roasting and finally drinking) doesn't sound too stupid.

Anyway, here's one more that spells more bad stuff for some of us:

Coffee Consumption and Circulating B-Vitamins in Healthy Middle-Aged Men and Women.

"Coffee consumption was dose-dependently associated with reduced plasma B-vitamin concentrations. Compared with coffee abstainers, individuals drinking 4 cups/day had 11.7% (P < 0.001), 14.1% (P < 0.001), and 5.5% (P = 0.01) lower plasma concentrations of folate, pyridoxal phosphate, and riboflavin, respectively, and the mean tHcy concentration was 6.8% (P < 0.001) higher."

I'm no doc or scientist, and my personal interpretation of this is that coffee consumption could help contribute to some serious neurological and/or cardiovascular disorders in some people as higher Homocysteine and lower B-Vits is no joke for some older individuals. This is of course not a call for mass action, but a different look at how coffee works our bodies.

This is a subset analysis of a large population being studied for something else, a study on colon cancer called the "Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention (NORCCAP) study." The researchers had blood samples lying around from this study, and used this material to write this paper.

The paper suffers on several counts that come immediately to mind:

(1) The study was not designed to look at the effect of coffee consumption on anything other than perhaps the incidence of colon cancer;

(2) There are confounding variables, some of which are listed by the researchers in the discussion section, such as some evidence that people who drink coffee are less likely to take vitamin pills, which could account for the observed differences;

(3) There is no followup information given on the observed clinical status of these patients, e.g. what were the health ramifications of the changes that they observed in the B vitamins? Did anyone die as a result? Was there a higher incidence of certain diseases in the studied patients as related to their changed B-vitamin status, that could in turn be related to their coffee consumption?

(4) Was there a higher incidence of any diseases or mortality in the coffee drinkers vs. the non-coffee drinkers?

I would consider this study to be "interesting," but of no real clinical value. The Scandinavians have a unique health system arrangement where they can easily follow up their research patients for both compliance with medication and treatment regimens, as well as for mortality and development of diseases. It is possible that they could do this with the patients on this study if they chose to devote the resources to it, however it will always be handicapped by being a subset analysis of a study that was done for other reasons, and not randomized prospectively in an appropriate way to be studying coffee consumption vs. anything other than the incidence of colon cancer.

In the context of a discussion of the positive or negative health effects of drinking coffee, this study is nearly worthless.

ken

I just got the results of my latest blood tests from my yearly physical - LDL = 68, total cholesterol = 135. This shows me that despite drinking 5-6 doubles every day, it is possible to get one's cholesterol levels into the 'heart-attack-proof' zone (without statins).

This proves that for me, espresso plays a minor role (if any) in the grand scheme of blood cholesterol levels, considering the impact of all the other (high fat) foods available. If you love espresso but are concerned, I suspect that a few very simple dietary choices will obviate any need to worry about your coffee.

Mark