Consumption of unfiltered coffee brews in elderly Europeans. SENECA Investigators.

OBJECTIVE

To quantify the consumption of unfiltered coffee brews, which contain the cholesterol-raising diterpenes cafestol and kahweol, in elderly subjects.

DESIGN

Interviews of randomly selected elderly in the 1993 SENECA Study on Nutrition and the Elderly in Europe.

SETTING

Nine towns in eight European countries (Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, and Northern Ireland/United Kingdom).

SUBJECTS

962 relatively healthy elderly persons (460 men, 502 women) born between 1913 and 1918.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

Daily coffee consumption, classified by brewing technique.

RESULTS

About 90 percent of the examinees were daily coffee users in Roskilde/Denmark (population means; men 530 ml/d, women 425 ml/d) and Culemborg/the Netherlands (men 513 ml/d, women 285 ml/d), against only 12% in Marki/Poland (population means; men 14 ml/d, women 36 ml/d) and 7% in Coimbra/Portugal (men 8 ml/d, women 0 ml/d). Drip-filtered and instant coffee, which are poor in diterpenes, were the prevalent types in most survey towns. Espresso and mocha coffee, which contain intermediate amounts of diterpenes, were consumed daily by 31% of the coffee drinkers in Switzerland and by all coffee drinkers in Italy, but intake was too low to substantially affect serum cholesterol levels. Consumption of brews that are rich in diterpenes, such as cafetiere, boiled, or Turkish/Greek coffee, was negligible in all survey towns.

CONCLUSIONS

Coffee drinking is common among elderly people in some European countries, but intake of cafestol and kahweol with unfiltered coffee brews is low.