HT Syndication
New Delhi [India], August 9: Osteoporosis is a common condition where bones become weak and brittle. This article explores how including prunes in your diet can be a delicious way to fight osteoporosis. It details the benefits of prunes for bone health, along with a 5-point plan for tackling osteoporosis and a day plan for incorporating Chilean Prunes into your meals and snacks.
Save your bones with Prunes
Osteoporosis has to be one of the most common preventable disorders around. Yet sadly it is ignored till a fracture reminds us of its existence. In fact, not many people know that this is an easily preventable problem.
So, what is osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis literally means porous bones, and is a condition where our bones begin to lose both density and strength as the rate of bone-degeneration outpaces bone growth and repair. Simply put our bones become weak and fragile, and break easily even with a minor fall, and can lead to major disability and poor quality of life.
5-point plan to tackle
The five well accepted (and effective) steps for osteoporosis prevention are:
1. Keep a look out for risk factors and get tested regularly (a DEXA scan, measures the density of calcium and other minerals in bones).
2. Do regular exercise (use them or lose them).
3. Avoid smoking and excess alcohol (both are toxic to the bones)
4. Eat an anti inflammatory diet (varied diet rich in fruit, vegetables, fish, omega-3 and wholegrain cereals helps).
5. Eat a diet rich in bone healthy nutrients. An overhaul of diet to consciously include functional foods that are specifically good for the bones is important. Here prunes, which are dehydrated plums fit in fabulously.
Love your bones
It’s not just calcium, the list is long and important. Vitamin D, K, C, B12, and minerals like magnesium, boron, and potassium are all important.
Prunes are an important source of the mineral boron, which can help form stronger, healthier bones. This trace mineral (needed in small amounts) appears to play an important role in improving the magnesium absorption and deposition in bone, absorption of vitamin D and calcium metabolism. Boron also effects the sex hormone metabolism and as the rate of bone loss increases after menopause, the impact of sex hormones on bone health is particularity important post menopause.
There’s more!
Prunes can help lower inflammatory chemicals that contribute to bone breakdown. This is particularly helpful for post-menopausal women when the bone breakdown frequency increases substantially.
A study, published recently (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38706560/) found that foods high in phenolics such as prunes have been shown to exert protective effects on bone mineral density (BMD). Just 50 to 100 g of prunes daily were found to help.
Prunes thus can help lower the risk of developing osteoporosis and experiencing fractures and breaks.
Additional benefits
Prunes have multiple other benefits besides better bone health which include delivering better gut health, more satiety, prevention of constipation, stronger immunity and keeping inflammation away.
The Advice: target eating 4 to 6 Chilean Prunes daily. An added bonus is that prunes are naturally sweet. No artificial sugar is added to them. Prunes come to India from Chile and are now available easily with major dry fruit retailers and e-commerce platforms.
A day plan to eat more prunes
Time to wake up and love our bones more.
* Start your day with it. Mix prunes into oatmeal, yogurt, or cereal for a nutritious breakfast.
* Combine with nuts and seeds and snack on them mid morning or mid evening or have them at bedtime.
* Add chopped prunes to your lunch salads for a sweet contrast to savoury ingredients.
* Blend prunes into your evening smoothie for a natural sweetness and fibre boost.
* Get experimental and bake with it to make healthy desserts like cakes, muffins, and brownies for a moist texture, added nutrition and natural sweetener. Or blend in prunes into sauces and dressings for a rich, sweet flavour.
By Kavita Devgan, a leading Dietitian, holistic health consultant and author.
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