I’d actually read about how dried plums can help build bone density in the August 18 2011 issue of Science Daily: http://goo.gl/E3Pll (easy to read; quite a lot of details). But I hadn’t posted about it at the time…Things accumulate, you know, and then get lost in the pile (you should see my desktop…scary! 😉 )! Then a blog reader reminded me (last night) of the plum study, so I looked it up this morning. It was published in “The British Journal of Nutrition” in September: http://goo.gl/Q3pJg 

Very interesting: Florida State and Oklahoma State University researchers led by Prof. Bahram H. Arjmandi (who’s been studying dried plums for more than ten years…testing them in animals, first…) tested dried plums, or prunes (same thing), on 160 postmenopausal women for one full year. About half the women ate 100  grams per day of dried plums, while the women in the control group ate an equivalent amount of dried apple. 

Results: Dried plum significantly increased BMD of ulna and spine in comparison with dried apple. Wow. “Significantly”! And it also decreased, again significantly!, the bone turnover markers present in the blood. Super!

Well well, dried plums…This morning I found, to my surprise, that prunes have quite a number of other healthful benefits…For example, they are a good source of potassium…They also apparently slow the development of atherosclerosis (see: http://goo.gl/7l5EZ…note that the study was sponsored by the California Dried Plum Board, though…but…ok), normalize blood sugar levels and, tadaaa!, help us absorb iron. Absorb iron, huh? Well, that is certainly a welcome bit of news. Yes indeed.

I think I might add prunes to my diet…with caution, as always. I mean, we know WHAT OTHER EFFECT prunes can have…!!!!! 😉