Report On Broad Beans Explained

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30588, 3 November 1964, Page 3

Report On Broad Beans Explained

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, November 2. The London report on the danger of broad beans to patients on some drugs for high blood pressure was misleading, the director of the Wellcome Research Institute (Sir Horace Smirk) said today.

The work originated in Dunedin and had been published in a medical journal by workers in Dunedin from the Wellcome Research Institute and the University of Otago biochemistry department. “The London report fails to emphasise that broad beans are of no danger when taken in combination with all but one of the many groups of drugs which may be used in treatment.

“Furthermore, the danger with beans does not exist when the seeds are eaten, but only when the pods of young broad beans are also eaten. “French, haricot and runner beans are harmless in this effect. “Research worker at the Wellcome Research Institute have shown that a substance in the pods of the broad beans is converted into another substance which rMses the blood pressure, but only when one of a group of drugs is also administered. “The drug in question has been used very widely in the United States but was withdrawn in Dunedin some five months ago when its potential danger was discovered,” he said.