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Abstract
Recent work suggesting the value of a high-carbohydrate diet for diabetics and personal experience of difficulties with patient compliance with bean diets prompted a preliminary investigation of some of the gastrointestinal effects of a bean diet.
Eight women substituted 230 g haricot beans for some vegetables and meat in their usual diet for 14 d preceded and followed by 10 d of their usual diet. Whole gut transit time and daily faecal output were studied, and records were kept of defaecation frequency and abdominal symptoms throughout the study. Diet records were kept for the first 24 d.
Dietary fibre intake increased from 22 to 49 g, defaecation frequency increased from 0.97 to 1.18/d, and daily faecal output increased from 115 ± 15 to 150 ± 14 g/d, when the bean diet was taken. Five subjects noted no symptoms other than an increase in flatulenc e, but three suffered some abdominal discomfort. The transit studies were inconclusive, but there was evidence of a marked effect of the menstrual period on marker retention.
The increase of faecal output was less than expected on the basis of an assumed pentose content of the beans, and the results suggest that the major proportion of patients fed diets containing very large quantities of beans will suffer no side-effects other than flatulence.