ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between coffee, caffeine, and serum cholesterol levels. Coffee is one of the two largest sources of caffeine throughout most of the world, the other being tea, and many investigations of caffeine and serum cholesterol have used coffee as a source for caffeine. Several epidemiological investigations have examined relationships between serum cholesterol levels and different methods of preparing coffee. The experimental studies have isolated and tested the impact of caffeine, different methods of preparation, and different chemical fractions of coffee beans on serum cholesterol levels over a varied range of time periods. The accumulated scientific evidence of the relationships between coffee, caffeine, and serum cholesterol allows for several conclusions to be drawn, while some important issues remain either equivocal or unaddressed. The links involve a number of factors, including the chemical composition of coffee begins, its preparation method, the amount of daily consumption, and specific characteristics of coffee drinkers.
