Why eating undercooked beans can make you very sick
Severe red kidney beans toxicity in an 8-year-old girl: a rare case of hypovolemic shock and prerenal acute kidney injury
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Some beans have a natural poison that can make your tummy explode with vomiting and diarrhea—and even stop your heart if you don’t cook them right.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
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Evidence Score
Detailed descriptions of individual patients or small groups. Valuable for identifying new conditions or side effects, but cannot establish generalizable conclusions.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Some beans have a natural poison that can make your tummy explode with vomiting and diarrhea—and even stop your heart if you don’t cook them right.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 524 / 30
Evidence Score
Detailed descriptions of individual patients or small groups. Valuable for identifying new conditions or side effects, but cannot establish generalizable conclusions.
Publication
Authors
Haile AM, Mengistie BT, Teshager AA, Belisa TK, Zewde EB, Deress AS
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Claims (6)
Uncooked legume lectins, particularly phytohemagglutinin in red kidney beans, induce severe gastrointestinal toxicity and systemic inflammation in humans at low doses.
Eating kidney beans that weren’t cooked long enough can make a child very sick—vomiting, passing out, and having very low blood pressure and kidney problems—because of a natural poison in the beans.
Giving lots of IV fluids quickly can fix kidney problems and bring a sick child back to normal after they get poisoned by undercooked beans.
If a kid gets sick with vomiting and diarrhea right after eating beans, and no one else got as sick, and they don’t have a fever, it might be from the beans—not a virus.
To make kidney beans safe, you have to soak them overnight and boil them hard for at least 10 minutes—otherwise, they can still make you sick.