08/23/2026
Have high LDL and/or triglycerides?
Filter your coffee (with UNbleached filters)!!!
Unfiltered coffee raises your LDL cholesterol. Filtered coffee does not. The bean is identical. The only thing that changes is whether the brew passes through paper.
Coffee oil carries two diterpenes, cafestol and kahweol. They survive in French press, espresso, boiled, and Turkish coffee, and a paper filter traps almost all of them. That single step is the difference.
Once in your body, the diterpenes lead the liver to clear less cholesterol from your blood, and LDL climbs. Cafestol is one of the most potent cholesterol-raising compounds in the diet, and the effect shows up in controlled human trials, not just observational data. The diterpenes nudge triglycerides up too.
How much you get depends almost entirely on the brewing method. Per cup:
Unfiltered or boiled: about 4.4 mg
French press: about 2.8 mg
Espresso: about 1.2 mg
Paper-filtered drip: about 0.08 mg
That is roughly a 55-fold difference between an unfiltered cup and a paper-filtered one of the same coffee.
If your LDL is a concern, this is one of the easiest levers you have. You do not have to give up coffee. You just have to run it through paper.
Naidoo et al., Nutr J, 2011
Urgert et al., Eur J Clin Nutr, 1995
de Roos et al., J Intern Med, 2000
Tverdal et al., Eur J Prev Cardiol, 2020
