zin1953 wrote:Then again, I've long believed that the five basic food groups consist, in random order, of chocolate, coffee, garlic, cheese, and wine.

At various points in my life I'd have agreed with you. At others, the four basic food groups were; Bags, Boxes, Bottles and Cans. While touring it was Nicotine, Alcohol, Chocolate and Coffee. While touring as an *adult*, it's been Veg, Bread, Juice, and Espresso. Chocolate has been relegated to dessert status...

My cholesterol is also a bit high for my age, lifestyle, and (lack of) family history. After hearing this, I came to HB and read the article posted here about cholesterol and espresso coffee.

Do you think we could get sufficient interest to do our own ground-breaking research? We could create a sign-up for those of us who are willing to participate and use something like Surveymonkey to collect the data. Each participant would get his/her cholesterol tested at the outset and under our current espresso drinking habits. Then participants would spend (I dunno) 6 weeks (?) drinking just 1 espresso and the rest paper-filtered coffee and get re-tested.

A quick review of the literature in this area would help us to understand how long an interval of reduced espresso drinking would suffice, what other information we should collect, and how many participants would be needed. With enough participants, perhaps we could even have a control group. Between HB and CoffeeGeek, we could surely get enough participants?!

I'd be happy to set up the survey tool and collect and analyze the data. Heck, maybe even our nutritionist member could get a publication out of it!

Or have I had too much espresso this morning ?

Mark

Dogshot wrote:Then participants would spend (I dunno) 6 weeks (?) drinking just 1 espresso and the rest paper-filtered coffee and get re-tested.

I think that we cold get some of the espresso nuts here to put a paper filter (like, perhaps the ones that come with the Aeropress?) under their puck for a few weeks, but who pays for the lab testing? I'm getting a triglycerides test here in April anyway, to check the efficacy of the statins I'm taking, and that would establish a bit of a baseline that could be compared to my October bloodwork. If someone were that interested, I'd be happy to put a paper filter on the bottom of my espressi for a month or six weeks and then submit another sample, but I'm not interested enough to pay the lab fees again. I'm perfectly happy with the knowledge that I'm probably going to die of espresso and chocolate consumption. I consider it a fair trade with a balanced universe.

More Survey Groups Needed for a Good Test? I like the idea of a survey and would suggest a couple of refinements. It might be possible to get some folks to forego espresso entirely for filtered coffee. So you would have three groups, one that drinks one espresso per day, one that stays with their usual espresso habit, one that drinks filtered only.

Passive or Press Through Filtering for Removing Cafesol? Then there's the issue of whether filter paper alone gets rid of cafesol or whether filtering through paper doesn't quite do the job if the filtering is under pressure. I've been playing with filtering by using a Melitta cone and putting Mr. Coffee machine filters in it that are thinner than the Melitta version. Melitta or Mr. Coffee filters both clog up when filtering espresso, so I need to shift the filter to get it to pour through. When I've pressed the liquid coffee through by hand, I noticed an oily surface in the cup that wasn't there when I let it passively drip. I've read elsewhere that AeroPress may not fully filter out cafesol because in the end you're pressing oils through the paper filter. There may be a similar issue for (forbid the blasphemy on this site) Illy pods where pressure is applied to the paper filtration process. I've also read that the filtering process doesn't work when there are flavor pores in the paper, defeating the filtering process. I wonder whether any of the scientists or chemists on this site might see whether passive filtering is necessary to do a proper test?

The Flavor Issue? Finally, there's my question that restarted interest in this thread. Do any of you have suggestions for stronger flavored beans and preparation that might at least make the filtered result more interesting than what you get out of an Illy pod? I do get really good flavor with drip coffee using Melitta paper, but it's hard to get that coffee anywhere near the concentration of espresso.

A survey might be fun, but please don't operate under the illusion that it will have any scientific significance whatsoever. Researcher bias? Self-selected subjects? No double (or even single) blinding? Limited knowledge of the design of scientific experiments? No adherence to guidelines for research involving human subjects (e.g. NIH, OHSR, HHS)? These are just a few of the many things wrong with the proposed survey, and failure to adequately address every item on this list, basically invalidates the results.

I hate to be such a wet blanket, but good research is hard to do... and poor research is typically worse than none at all. It's one thing to measure brew temperature (even that is difficult to do accurately) and draw conclusions about an espresso machine, another thing entirely to survey the impact of filtered vs. unfiltered coffee on cholesterol levels, and draw conclusions about health.

drgary wrote:Do any of you have suggestions for stronger flavored beans and preparation that might at least make the filtered result more interesting than what you get out of an Illy pod? I do get really good flavor with drip coffee using Melitta paper, but it's hard to get that coffee anywhere near the concentration of espresso.

Have you tried an Aeropress?

RapidCoffee wrote:A survey might be fun, but please don't operate under the illusion that it will have any scientific significance whatsoever. Researcher bias? Self-selected subjects? No double (or even single) blinding? Limited knowledge of the design of scientific experiments? No adherence to guidelines for research involving human subjects (e.g. NIH, OHSR, HHS)? These are just a few of the many things wrong with the proposed survey, and failure to adequately address every item on this list, basically invalidates the results.

I hate to be such a wet blanket, but good research is hard to do... and poor research is typically worse than none at all. It's one thing to measure brew temperature (even that is difficult to do accurately) and draw conclusions about an espresso machine, another thing entirely to survey the impact of filtered vs. unfiltered coffee on cholesterol levels, and draw conclusions about health.

John, I disagree with your poo-poo-ims. I have hardly proposed anything beyond an idea at this point, so criticizing the idea is exactly nothing more than poo-pooing it. Who says there could be no ethics approval? That, and any other potential flaws are things that you deal with in the design and then in the limitations of your research. No single study, no matter how well done can suggest anything more than an idea as to whether that line of research is worth further consideration.

There are quite a few fairly accomplished and clever people on this forum; with a few interested and able people working together, I think it would be possible to do something worthwhile. All research has its flaws and limitations. That does not mean that all research is invalid, or even bad. I know that you know all this. By the way, how does drug testing with human subjects work without self-selected subjects? I hear ads on the radio all the time looking for subjects.

Actually, the one thing pointed out that does pose a real problem with this idea is the cost of the blood test. I had forgotten about the American health care system.

Mark

In that case, I look forward to seeing the results of your study.

John:

The skepticism you voice is useful in tightening up the study design. I agree with Mark on doing the best we can to get useful information on this issue.

I haven't tried an AeroPress because as I mentioned above forcing hot water through a paper filter may allow the cafesol to leach through. Given my medical history (two angioplasties, too early, and family history of such problems), I've got to err on the side of caution and for this reason wouldn't be a good candidate for a study because I can't risk going back to unfiltered espresso. However, if someone does test AeroPress and find that it does eliminate cafesol, that might be a good solution.

Meanwhile, any ideas, anyone, on how to intensify the espresso flavor so there's something left after it's filtered? What kind of roast should I use, dark and oily beans?

Gary

You might contact Alan Adler and get his thoughts. My WAG: if you don't reuse the Aeropress filters, most of the cafestol will be absorbed/adsorbed/whatever. (I have absolutely no data to back this up.)