Role of Commodity Boards in Advancing the Understanding of the Health Benefits of Whole Foods: California Dried Plums.

Food and agriculture commodity boards have become important funders of nutrition research. There are benefits and cautions (biases toward health benefits, failure to publish negative results, and aggressive promotion of single studies) for this activity. The California Dried Plum Board, along with other commodity boards, have developed independent Scientific Nutrition Advisory Panels to guide and […]

Dried plum diet protects from bone loss caused by ionizing radiation.

Bone loss caused by ionizing radiation is a potential health concern for radiotherapy patients, radiation workers and astronauts. In animal studies, exposure to ionizing radiation increases oxidative damage in skeletal tissues, and results in an imbalance in bone remodeling initiated by increased bone-resorbing osteoclasts. Therefore, we evaluated various candidate interventions with antioxidant or anti-inflammatory activities […]

A Mediterranean Diet Enriched with Olive Oil Is Associated with Higher Serum Total Osteocalcin Levels in Elderly Men at High Cardiovascular Risk.

Background:The intake of olive oil has been related to the prevention of osteoporosis in experimental and in in vitro models. Very few prospective studies have evaluated the effects of olive oil intake on circulating osteocalcin (OC) in humans.Objective:The objective of the study was to examine the longitudinal effects of a low-fat control diet (n = […]

Dried plum polyphenols attenuate the detrimental effects of TNF-alpha on osteoblast function coincident with up-regulation of Runx2; Osterix and IGF-I

Previous studies have demonstrated that dried plums which contain high amounts of polyphenols can restore bone mass and structure; and significantly increase indices of bone formation. The purpose of this study was to determine how dried plum polyphenols influence osteoblast activity and mineralized nodule formation under normal and inflammatory conditions. MC3T3-E1 cells were plated and […]