New Health Benefit of Prunes – Increase in Bone Mass

Prunes or Dried Plums have long been perceived as the “constipation fruit.” While consuming prunes and prune products is beneficial to digestive health due to their high fiber content, recent studies conclude that prunes may also help treat osteoporosis and increase bone mass.

A report in the latest edition of The Journal of Nutrition discusses a recent study led by a researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, which finds that in aging mice, a diet with prune supplement helped the mice gain back or increase bone mass.

“This may be the first natural product we have identified that is capable of restoring bone that’s been lost due to aging,” says principal investigator Bernard P. Halloran, PhD, a senior research scientist at SFVAMC and an adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.