Berries and Bones
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Rubus berries (raspberries, blackberries, salmonberries, boysenberries) are high in 5 bone-health nutrients: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, dietary fiber and antioxidant phytochemicals (pigments, click!) Although everyone should be interested in maintaining good bone health, bone disorders – and therefore remedies for them – are more of a concern for teenage and elderly females. Why? The main concern for both age groups is osteoporosis which afflicts senior women at a rate 4 times higher than for men. It's a disease defined by fragility of bones, particularly those of the hip, wrist, spine and legs, making these bones susceptible to fracture and difficult to heal properly. For female teens? Research has shown that getting a head-start on nutritional support for preventing osteoporosis during the early teen years in girls can pay off for having healthy bones later in life. In the United States, 26% of women aged 65-85 years and more than 50% of women aged 85 years or older have osteoporosis. Over 1.5 million fractures per year are attributable to osteoporosis. (These fractures result in 500,000 hospitalizations, 800,000 emergency room visits, 2.6 million physician visits, 180,000 nursing home placements, and $15 billion in direct healthcare costs each year.) Osteoporosis can be readily prevented with two simple lifestyle measures:
How can someone minimize or stop the process of osteoporosis? also... How do berries fit into a solution?
Boysenberries, (Rubus hybrid), Courtesy of the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission
A Role for Dietary Calcium and Supportive Nutrients Throughout most of adult life, women and men need from the diet about 1,000 mg of calcium each day, but medical research proved that a boost to good bone health later in life can be supplied by overintake of calcium (1,300 mg/day) during the ages of 9-12. This is especially beneficial for girls to adopt a lifelong habit of calcium intake combined with weight-bearing exercise to avoid osteoporosis later in life . Not only calcium but also phosphorus and vitamin D are important to overall bone health. Considerable research on nutrients affecting bone status shows the importance of other essential minerals such as magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc, silicon, sodium; vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, vitamin A; and macronutrients, such as dietary fiber, protein, fatty acids, and long-chained sugars (polysaccharides). The fermentable dietary fibers, such as polysaccharides, inulin, beta-glucans, mucilages and gums, enhance mineral uptake in the large intestine once they are metabolized. Therefore, a diet particularly rich in calcium combined with fiber sources are valuable for bone health. An entirely new research area of the past 5 years is the evolving theory that osteoporosis is a disease of oxidative stress. Particularly in the elderly, osteoporosis may result as an alteration of bone metabolism caused by inflammatory mechanisms associated with oxidative stress. One of the benefits of medical research is to give consumers a guideline for reducing risk or preventing diseases. Osteoporosis has been well-studied over the years, but new research has focused on dietary remedies as a preventative against osteoporosis. Calcium-dense foods such as fortified orange juice, dark green vegetables like spinach, tofu and other soy products, almonds and dairy foods such as milk and yogurt are excellent calcium sources, especially for early teen females. The potential role of oxidative stress in osteoporosis onset indicates that eating antioxidant foods would also be wise. Dark berries not only contain great sources of pigment antioxidants but are also good sources of calcium, other bone health minerals like phosphorus and magnesium, dietary fiber and vitamin C.
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