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Comment by galadran | Hacker News Reader

This report looks to have examined the same question in the EU and seems less alarmed:

https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2015/09/978-87-93352-...

The report monitored "ready-to-drink espresso coffee from 8 cafes and gas stations... purchased in the Copenhagen area."

The OP's forum is talking about particular (older) mid-range personal espresso machines which use brass boilers, like the Silvia V3: https://www.thecoffeebrewers.com/rasihoofesan1.html Those are not generally found in higher-end-coffee-selling cafes.

The report did note that one of the espresso machines tested in Copenhagen put out levels of lead greater than what was considered disconcerting in the OP's forum's calculations: 65ng/ml vs the 20-40ng/ml found in Rob's testings.

But even so, they still conclude that such levels are not a particular health risk in their mind. From the report:

> "The concentration in ready to drink espresso from cafes was similar to the homebrewed coffee in all but one sample, which had a concentration of 65 ng/ml. Even if a consumer has a daily cup of coffee from this cafe it will not be of health concern. The correlation between tin and lead described earlier indicate that the source of the high value could be a lead containing welding in the espresso machine."

There is no safe amount of lead.

There are acceptable amounts.

“No amount of lead is safe.”

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/lead/index.cf...

I had no idea lead was so bad for you. It’s terrible.

Only according to some bureaucracy that had part of its mission not to raise costs too much for manufacturers.

Not according to human physiology/medicine.

Dosage is the poison. Oxygen can become toxic quite easily.

I doubt a single atom of lead will be unsafe. Or two. There is definitely a level at which the intake of lead will not lead to any measurable effects during the lifetime of a human.

It is the same with ionizing radiation.

However, the question is about how much it matters compared to global intake.

We get lead from many sources, some of them hard to avoid while still living a normal life. "Safe" doses are doses that represent only a small fraction of that unavoidable part. The standards may change as the unavoidable become avoidable.

For radiation, the baseline is clear, that's background level, I don't know the equivalent for lead but it's clear that we can't keep away every single lead atom.

They’re not equivalent. Radiation is likely to mutate DNA, but it’s also likely that the body self-repairs such mutations. Lead, however, has no self-defense mechanism. It mimics chemistry in the synapses between neurons causing havoc with nervous communication. It does a host of other horrible things across the body depending on where it ends up.

There is no safe amount. Clearly it exists in nature, as does arsinic and uranium, so we will be exposed to toxins unavoidably. That doesn’t mean it’s safe or good, especially to be consciously added to your daily coffee.

The big concern from the forum post data was that the machines hold water near boiling in a brass boiler. In a coffee shop, the flow through the boiler is much higher than at home, so buying a brass boiler for home use may not be a great idea. I don’t think this contradicts the linked study (buying small, cafe-grade machines for home use is kind of a corner case...).

I think I'd actually be more concerned about coffee makers in offices - any of the multi burner ones with a hot water spigot are obviously maintaining a supply of hot water.

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