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Not this one! either say the structural engineer who fully "understands bending moments"
I think I can recall my first year statics course at Uni...
The bending moments acting on a beam haven't changed just because it has holes drilled in it but it's ability to resist them has been compromised. Cutting holes can initiate cracks that can propagate when beams are loaded, mostly because of low tension strength perpendicular to grain of timber. Crack propagation changes the failure mechanism of beams, and fracture can occur at considerably lower than predicted loads therefore reinforcing the area to avoid it is a fairly common sense solution.