Men's Osteoporosis Support Group

Dried plums and bone mineral density

J Nutr. 2010 Aug 25. [Epub ahead of print]. Dietary Dried Plum Increases Bone Mass in Adult and Aged Male Mice. Halloran BP and others. PMID: 20739449. The most common therapies for osteoporosis involve medications that block bone resorption, such as the bisphosphonates: alendronate, risedronate, etc. There is one approved therapy that actively stimulates bone formation (is anabolic), and that is teriparatide (Forteo). Researchers are always looking for additional anabolic treatments of osteoporosis. This study tested dried plums (DP) in male mice as a potential anabolic therapy for osteoporosis. They tested adult, six-month-old mice, and old, 18-month-old mice, feeding them 0, 15, and 25% DP by weight [Editor: I assume "by weight" means, e.g., 15% of the total food weight the animals were fed. If they ate 100 grams of food a day, 15 grams would have been dried plums] over the 6-month study.

They found adult and old mice fed 25% DP had 40-50% cancellous bone volume increase when compared to starting levels. Other measures they used were apparently not as effective in the old animals. The authors stated, "Our findings suggest that DP contains proanabolic factors that can dramatically increase bone volume and restore bone that has already been lost due to aging. In turn, DP may provide effective prophylactic and therapeutic agents for the treatment of osteoporosis."

Editor's comments. There have been previous studies on this topic that are reported in this Update. The Halloran and others study confirms the results of those studies and in male mice, not postmenopausal female animals. Hopefully future studies will define the anabolic constituent(s) of the DP so those elements could be refined and used. And pending that, additional human studies will be helpful to see if they confirm the beneficial changes to bone mineral density BMD. So far human studies have only shown positive changes in biochemical markers of bone formation.

Actually one element of a future animal study I would like to see is the addition of additional dried fruits, particularly apricots, to see if there is something about other dried fruits that is positive for bone density, or if only DP has the needed elements. A previous study tested dried apples, but I would think that apricots would more closely relate to DP as a test product. That is, there would be a control group with no dried fruit, and test group with dried apricots and a test group with dried plumes to test if it could be that the DP benefit might come from apricots, or other dried fruits.

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