A new study has revealed that the coffee machine in your office might be doing more harm than good. The study has found that the coffee from the coffee machine might be responsible for increasing your cholesterol levels because of the presence of certain compounds.
Consequently, this can potentially increasing your cardiovascular risk over time. The study was conducted by a team of scientists at Uppsala University and Chalmers University of Technology. The team found that these machines contain significantly higher levels of these cholesterol-elevating compounds than traditional paper-filtered coffee.
Several studies have revealed that coffee consumption has many health benefits like improving cognitive function and reducing risk of certain diseases. Since the 1980s, scientists have known that unfiltered coffee can raise LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol—the “bad” kind associated with heart disease risk.
In the current study, the Swedish researchers examined 14 machines and analyzed two specific compounds: cafestol and kahweol. In the 1990s, these compounds were identified to be responsible for unfiltered coffee’s cholesterol-raising effect.
Researchers found median cafestol concentrations of 176 milligrams per liter in brewing machine coffee—nearly 15 times higher than the 12 milligrams per liter found in paper-filtered brews. Kahweol showed similar patterns.
In Nordic countries like Sweden, workplace coffee isn’t just an occasional indulgence—it’s practically institutionalized. Many companies provide free coffee as a tax-deductible benefit, making those self-serve machines standard features in office rest areas. Workers might consume three or more cups daily throughout their careers, creating decades of exposure to these cholesterol-raising compounds.
The findings of the study were published in the Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases journal.
The researchers emphasised that paper-filtered coffee—whether drip-brewed at home or from liquid-model workplace machines—appears perfectly safe for cardiovascular health. A single cup of machine coffee won’t harm you, but decades of daily exposure could contribute to cardiovascular risk in subtle ways, they stated.