Effects of Dried Plum Supplementation on Bone Metabolism in Adult C57BL/6 Male Mice

Abstract

Dietary supplementation of dried plum (DP) prevents bone loss and restores bone mass in osteopenic animal models. This study was designed to determine the effects of DP supplementation on bone metabolic activity over time using adult (6-month-old) male C57BL/6 mice (n = 40) receiving control (CON = AIN93 M) or CON+DP 25 % (w/w) diets for 4 or 12 weeks. After 4 weeks of treatment, animals consuming the DP diet had a higher whole-body bone mineral density, vertebral trabecular bone volume (BV/TV), and femoral cortical thickness compared to the CON animals. In the distal metaphysis of the femur, BV/TV was increased in the DP-treated animals, but only after 12 weeks. Bone histomorphometric analyses revealed that DP decreased osteoblast surface (67 %) and osteoclast surface (62 %) at 4 weeks, but these surfaces normalized to the CON animals by 12 weeks. Coincident with these changes, the mineralizing surface (MS/BS) and cancellous bone formation rate (BFR/BS) were reduced at 4 weeks in the DP group compared to the CON, but by 12 weeks of DP supplementation, BFR/BS (~twofold) and MS/BS (~1.7-fold) tended to be increased (p < 0.10). The relative abundance of RNA for key regulators of osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation and indicators of osteoblast activity were reduced in the DP group at 4 weeks with no difference between groups at 12 weeks. These results indicate that supplementing the diet with DP initially suppressed cancellous bone turnover, but a biphasic response occurs over time, resulting in a positive effect on bone mass and structure.

Dried plum diet protects from bone loss caused by ionizing radiation

“…To evaluate overall health, body weights and food consumption were monitored throughout the experiments ( Table 1 ). Candidate interventions were administrated to the mice prior to TBI using pre-feeding protocols reported to effectively protect other tissues 34 43 44 45 46 or bone 47 and following exposure to radiation as described in the methods ( Fig. 1 ).…”

Dietary countermeasure mitigates simulated spaceflight-induced osteopenia in mice

“…To assess possible effects of a period of prefeeding mice with either CD or DP on microarchitecture, (and prior to initiating hindimb unloading), mice were prefed the diets for 17 days and the cancellous tibia analyzed by microCT. Mice fed the DP diet showed no effect of diet in BV/TV, Tb.N or Tb.Sp although a modest increase (+7%) in Tb.Th was observed (Supplementary table 2) which has been published before 35,37,58 .…”

“…Dried plum, Prunus domestica L., has been shown to have beneficial effects against bone loss 31 (reviewed in Wallace et al 2017). Dried plum's positive effects on bone health markers have been investigated in multiple models of osteopenia, in both human clinical trials [32][33][34][35][36] and rodent studies 37,38 . While the mechanism of action of dried plum is still unknown, it has been hypothesized that the high antioxidant capacity and high polyphenolic content of this fruit scavenges free-radicals as well as promotes bone formation and inhibits bone resorption [39][40][41][42] .…”

A Systematic Review on the Health Effects of Plums (Prunus domestica and Prunus salicina)

“…Compared with the anabolic therapy using parathyroid hormone that significantly increased systemic and local indicators of bone formation with no effect on systemic marker of bone resorption, dried plum supplementation suppressed bone turnover with no effect on the indices of bone formation at the endocortical surface. In another study by the same research team, dried plum supplementation initially suppressed cancellous bone turnover but demonstrated a biphasic response over time, exerting positive effects on bone mass and bone structure (Smith et al, 2014b). Plum extract has also been shown to be effective in increasing bone calcium retention by 20% (Pawlowski et al, 2014).…”