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# Five or six prunes a day, and her hip held its ground
- URL: https://the-longevity-brief.ghost.io/five-or-six-prunes-a-day-and-her-hip-held-its-ground/
- Published: 2026-10-16T13:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T13:00:06.000Z
- Description: A 12-month trial in 235 postmenopausal women. The dose that worked, and the one that did not.
- Author: The Longevity Brief

Eat five or six prunes every day. That is about 50 grams, and in a year-long trial it was enough to stop hip bone loss in postmenopausal women.

The trial was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2022\. It randomized 235 postmenopausal women, average age sixty-two, to no prunes, 50 grams a day or 100 grams a day.

After twelve months, the women who ate no prunes lost 1.1 percent of their total hip bone density. The 50-gram group lost only 0.3 percent.

That gap matters because the hip is where a fracture costs the most. In the control group, the hip fracture risk score was already worse at six months, while the prune groups held steady.

Here is the detail that makes the move practical. The 100-gram group did not do better, and 41 percent of those women dropped out before the year was over.

Ten or twelve prunes a day turned out to be more than people could stick with. Five or six, with about 90 percent adherence, worked better because the women kept eating them.

Researchers think prunes protect bone through their polyphenols, which appear to slow the cells that break bone down. Prunes also bring potassium, vitamin K and boron.

Be clear on what this is. Prunes preserved bone in this trial, they did not build it, and the study was funded by the California Prune Board.

It is one well-run trial, not a substitute for lifting, calcium, vitamin D or medication your doctor has prescribed. It is a cheap, low-risk addition to all of them.

Put five or six prunes in a small dish every morning, about 120 calories. Eat them with breakfast or chopped into yogurt, and start with three a day for a week if fiber is new for you.

Hip bone loss is quiet until the day it is not. Fifty grams a day is how you push back from the kitchen.