I wonder how many men skipped their morning coffee today because of the ruling by Judge Elihu M. Berle, in Los Angeles County Superior Court:
“Since defendants failed to prove that coffee confers any human health benefits, defendants have failed to satisfy their burden of proving that sound considerations of public health support an alternate risk level for acrylamide in coffee”. [1]
Acrylamide is not inherent in coffee beans - it is introduced during their roasting.
Many of us might remember acrylamide as being discovered in french fries some years back, yet fries do not come with a cancer warning, even in California.
In fact, acrylamide may be found in many cooked food subject to the Maillard reaction [2].
As an amateur cook, I'm well aware of the Maillard reaction when I bake bread or brown meat. It is something that happens to sugars (not to be confused with added sugar) when food is subjected to the proper degree of heat. It is considered to be desirable, since it does affect flavor.
But, if the Maillard reaction occurs, can acrylamide be far behind?
In 2013, there was a PCa-acrylamide paper from the Health Professionals’ Follow-up Study [3]. With 47,896 U.S. men, 5,025 cases of prostate cancer, and 642 lethal cancers, it's an important document for those concerned about acrylamide in the U.S. diet.
"Acrylamide intake ranged from a mean of 10.5 mcg/day in the lowest quintile to 40.1 mcg/day in the highest quintile; coffee and potato products were largest contributors to intake. The multivariate-adjusted relative risk of prostate cancer was 1.02 (95% confidence interval: 0.92–1.13) for the highest versus lowest quintile of acrylamide intake (p-value for trend=0.90). Results were similar when restricted to never smokers and to men who had PSA tests. There was no significant association for dietary acrylamide and risk of lethal, advanced, or high-grade disease, or for different latency periods ranging from 0–4 years to 12–16 years. We found no evidence that acrylamide intake, within the range of U.S. diets, is associated with increased risk of prostate cancer."
The authors include the usual suspects - Giovannucci & Stampfer - but the lead author was Kathryn Wilson (the acrylamide lady). Wilson has 9 papers on the subject [4].
...
It's natural to assume that acrylamide is a function of heat x time, but it occurs early in the Maillard process, so a light roast will not produce safer coffee. In fact, continued heat may help break down the acrylamide.
I used to buy coffee from a place that roasted their mail orders the day before they shipped. When the 16oz bags became 12 oz bags for the same price, I switched to local (NC) coffee - Counter Culture. The coffee is excellent but it irritates me that the local supermarkets usually show roasting dates well into the past. However, it does not seem to affect the flavor, & it turns out that acrylamide probably breaks down entirely during that period.
While acrylamide is considered to be a carcinogen in the U.S., it is not classed as such when present in food. Until Judge Berle, that is.
I wrote a review of coffee 2 years ago:
"Foods/Supplements-Vitamins: Coffee".
It's fairly clear that coffee reduces the risk of aggressive PCa, so the acrylamide is irrelevant IMO.
-Patrick
[1] nytimes.com/2018/03/30/busi...
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maill...
Cholera Vaccine Revisited
Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI)
