Beans, beans,
their good for your heart.
Beans, beans
they make you fart.
The more you fart,
the better you feel.
So eat your beans
at every meal.
It seems that there is more to this saying than meets the eye, as it relates to farts, that is.
A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds.
The unpleasant aroma of the gas, called hydrogen sulfide (H2S), can be a little too familiar, as it is expelled by bacteria living in the human colon and eventually makes its way, well, out.
The new research found that cells lining mice’s blood vessels naturally make the gas and this action can help keep the rodents’ blood pressure low by relaxing the blood vessels to prevent hypertension (high blood pressure). This gas is “no doubt” produced in cells lining human blood vessels too, the researchers said.
“Now that we know hydrogen sulfide’s role in regulating blood pressure, it may be possible to design drug therapies that enhance its formation as an alternative to the current methods of treatment for hypertension,” said Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., a co-author of the study detailed in the Oct. 24th issue of the journal Science.
Here’s a simpler solution: leave the drugs out of the equation and eat your beans. Besides being good for you, they are a cheaper source of protiens and other nutrients, as well as promoting flatulence.
Other foods that promote farting — cruciferous veggies, many of which are felt to fight the overload of estrogens from processed foods, in the body.
