Bone health is as important as the health of any other organs in the body, especially for women. Weakening of bone tissue is a typical female disease that begins to progress after the age of 40 and becomes particularly noticeable with the onset of menopause. It is called osteoporosis, and probably everyone knows that the most severe manifestation of this disease is hip fracture.
To avoid such a scenario, many medications are offered to postmenopausal women. In addition to calcium and vitamin D preparations, they are prescribed female hormones and some other drugs with very serious side effects to prevent osteoporosis.
You won't believe it, but a simple product that you can find at your nearest grocery store can be extremely effective in preventing this disease. It's about prunes.
In recent years, several experimental studies have shown that prunes not only prevent bone mass loss, but also, very importantly, reverse it if the process is already underway. This is called antiresorptive action. That is, in fact, not only preventive, but also therapeutic activity of prunes.
One of the most recent studies lasted a year and involved 183 women over the age of 55. All of them were in postmenopause – the period after the onset of menopause, which lasts 5-8 years. The participants of the experiment were divided into three groups: not consuming prunes, with daily consumption of 50 g of dried fruit and with daily consumption of 100 g of prunes. For 12 months, the volunteers followed a regular prune consumption regimen and kept a diary to monitor adherence to the recommendations and track the amount eaten.
Researchers found that when women ate a handful of prunes (50-100 grams) daily, their blood concentrations of cytokines – substances that activate the development of inflammatory processes – decreased. High levels of these proinflammatory molecules in women have been linked to the weakening of their bone mass with age, its fragility and susceptibility to osteoporosis.
One of the key factors in the success of the study, according to experts, is the variety of bioactive compounds found in prunes – trace elements, phenolic acids and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are very abundant in dark plums and thus in prunes. Which means that all the health benefits found in these studies apply to dark plums as well. So you can eat fresh plums in season and prunes the rest of the year. But keep in mind that light-colored (yellow) plums are no substitute for dark plums because they contain fewer polyphenols. These substances give plums their purple color, and the more intense it is, the more polyphenols they contain.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that plums are useful not only for bones, but also for the whole body – for all age-related diseases, including cardiovascular pathologies, cancer, etc. Therefore, plums will be very useful not only for women, but also for men throughout the year and every day.
Prunes are often eaten simply as a snack. It can also be mixed with dark chocolate chips or various types of nuts. Prunes can be added to breakfast cereal or oatmeal, smoothies or salads. It is also used as a topping in baked goods.
In small amounts, prunes are great in salty dishes such as soups or stews. Prune puree can be used in place of butter or used to make jam.
Make plums a part of your diet and you won't regret it!