Children throughout America may recognize beans as the magical fruit, and according to one ASU researcher, while beans may not actually be a fruit, they’re still good for your heart.

Donna Winham, an assistant professor at the Polytechnic campus’s nutrition department, conducted a study on the correlation between bean consumption and risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.

Winham found the inclusion of beans in people’s daily diets dramatically lowers cholesterol levels.

The 24-week study, which was funded by Bush Brothers & Company, had subjects include a half-cup of beans in their daily diets.

Participants were told not to modify any other aspects of their diet or lifestyle.

Winham said the subjects ate different beans in three eight-week intervals.

“People would eat pintos for eight weeks, black-eyed peas for eight weeks and carrots that were used as a placebo for eight weeks,” she said. “We tested blood lipids at the beginning and end of each session.”

Winham said pinto beans lowered cholesterol in virtually every subject.
“On average, cholesterol levels went down close to eight percent, but some went down nearly 40 percent,” she said. “That’s important because that is a lot for such a small change in diet.”

The reasons for the dramatic reduction in cholesterol levels, Winham said, is because beans have a high level of fiber and the ability to satisfy large appetites.

“A lot of it has to do with substitution effects,” Winham said. “We had subjects who would eat beans for breakfast and get full. This causes them to not eat other foods that may not be as healthy.”

Freshman nursing student Kristen Dewees, said she didn’t know beans were so healthy.

“I love beans, but I only really eat them about once a month,” she said. “I usually will have a burrito with beans in it or just as a side dish with something else.

Dewees said she will eat more beans now that she knows the benefits.

Fellow freshman nursing student Lawrence Ruiz likes beans of all varieties.

“I’m Mexican — of course I like beans,” Ruiz said jokingly. “I usually eat beans at least once a week.”

Ruiz said now that he knows of the potential health benefits of beans, he will probably eat more of them, even though he said they give him gas.

Winham said gas was a side effect experienced by 50 percent of the study’s participants, but it only lasted the first week.

“Other studies had people eating a cup and a half of beans a day,” she said. “When you eat that much of anything it’s going to cause problems, and people just have the idea in their heads that beans will give them gas.”

Winham and her colleagues are redesigning the study to find more qualitative data.

“We had a pretty good idea of what subjects’ diets were like and their cholesterol levels,” she said. “We want to get a better idea of things like typical diet and exercise.”

Reach the reporter at jaking5@asu.edu.