
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995                   TAG: 9502100066
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UNFILTERED RISKS

PICK YOUR poison, coffee or cigarettes. Filtered, or unfiltered? Careful, now. The choice could affect your health, and the "right" answers aren't always as obvious as they first seem.

If you like your java strong, be forewarned that oil droplets that can form on top of rich coffees such as espresso can raise blood concentrations of cholesterol and triglycerides, compounds linked to artery-clogging plaque formation.

In this case, though, preparing your favorite brew with a standard paper filter will reduce the cholesterol-raising alcohols in the oil droplets to "negligible amounts," researchers assure us.

Similarly, the accepted wisdom about cigarettes is that the filtered variety poses less of a health threat because the filters remove the nasty stuff - in this instance, much of the irritating tar in cigarette smoke. But results of a new study suggest that fibers from the filters themselves can help carry tarry carcinogens into the lung and keep them there.

As reported in Science News magazine, this is only a hypothesis. It was drawn from the observation of tar-coated fibers from the filters in the white blood cells of tissue taken from people with lung cancer. A follow-up study found that such fibers injected into mice did not deteriorate or lose their tarry coating for the life of the six-month experiment.

Health-conscious smokers (now there's an oxymoron) should quit the habit altogether and right away, of course. But those unable or unwilling to overcome their addictions would be ill-advised to switch to unfiltered just yet. Other scientists doubt the fibers would add much risk unless they were present in huge amounts, or, even if there is an added risk, that it is greater than the protection the filters offer.

As the eggheads say, more study is needed. The most-needed measures are to increase the excise taxes and social stigma attached to smoking. But scientific research into the insidious effects of tobacco also can help, either by heightening awareness of its dangers or by developing a less harmful product.

We suggest researchers send all results to tobacco companies by registered mail, though, just to be sure they don't get lost along the way. How else to explain executives' apparent ignorance of the scientific evidence that their product kills? They must have some kind of filter against clarity and conscience.

by CNB