Prunes for bone health

My own bone density is a little on the low side so I am always interested in easy to apply solutions, and one came across my radar today that I will be enjoying with my porridge or dessert, or as a snack. 

Once women move through menopause and our oestrogen is permanently lower, we tend to lose bone density a little every year. Depending on how dense our bones were before menopause, which has a lot to do with our diet and lifestyle decades earlier, we can end up with bones more prone to fractures as we get older. 

Several studies including a recent large one have shown that eating the equivalent of about 5-6 prunes a day (50g) prevents bone loss over a year compared to a control group. As in, those who ate the prunes maintained the same bone mineral density after 12 months, and those in the control group lost significant bone mass at the hip. 

This makes eating prunes daily a significant benefit for bone health for post-menopausal women, and probably for men too. For those already with low bone mineral density, or osteoporosis or osteopenia, this is wonderful news. Particularly good for those who cannot or do not want to take medication, or are not great at taking supplements. 

Prunes contain some nutrients known to be important for bone health such as boron, potassium and Vit K. However there also seem to be other compounds (phenolic compounds) that are not well understood, which prevent bone resorption and stimulate bone formation. 

And we all know prunes also have another beneficial side effect of helping with bowel regularity- we don’t know if this is connected to the bone benefits or not.

Prunes are easy to get at the supermarket, sweet and juicy, able to be added to various foods such as morning cereal, relatively inexpensive, and might now be considered a super food too.