WHAT ABOUT DECAF?
Filed Under Coffee |
You drink decaffeinated coffee, so it can’t possibly affect your cholesterol. Right? Not so fast. In one study, decaffeinated coffee raised levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, while regular, caffeinated coffee did not.
Scientists at the Lipid Research Clinic at Stanford University had 181 healthy middle-age men drink several cups of regular, drip-filtered coffee a day. After two months, some of the men switched to decaf; others continued to drink regular coffee. After another two months, the decaf drinkers saw their LDL cholesterol increase significantly. The regular-coffee drinkers experienced no such changes in LDL. Further, the LDL cholesterol levels of the decaf drinkers were 6 percent higher than that of the regular-coffee drinkers. The researchers’ conclusion: It is not the caffeine in coffee but some other factor in the decaf that’s responsible for the increase in LDL cholesterol. But William P. Castelli, M.D., medical director of the Framingham Cardiovascular Institute, a wellness program at Metro West Medical Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, remains skeptical. “This is just one study,” he says.