Dr. Marion Nestle is a renowned nutrition professor at NYU and Cornell. She follows-up on food industry funded research to present a clearer picture of the results and their trustability. Do the claims the industry makes actually hold up under review? Keep an eye on our Fact Check files to find out.
I learned about this one from this article: Prune consumption may prevent bone loss for postmenopausal women. Dietary supplementation with prunes can have a broad range of effects on immune, inflammatory and oxidative stress markers in postmenopausal women, according to a recent study… Read more.
When I see a headline like this, my first question is , as always, who would pay for something like this?
I went right to the study: De Souza MJ, Strock NCA, Williams NI, Lee H, Koltun KJ, Rogers C, Ferruzzi MG, Nakatsu CH, Weaver C. Prunes preserve hip bone mineral density in a 12-month randomized controlled trial in postmenopausal women: the Prune Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022 Oct 6;116(4):897-910. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/nqac189.
Conclusion: “The results of this investigation provide compelling evidence of the long-term efficacy of daily prune consumption.”
Funding: We thank the California Prune Board (Award Number: 180215) for the funding and prunes and the participants in this study.
Author disclosures: CW and CR are members of the Nutritional Advisory Panel for the California Prune Board. All other authors report no conflict of interest.
Comment: Bingo on this one. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all you had to do to prevent bone loss was to eat 5 prunes a day? Go for it!
The post Industry-funded study of the week: Prunes appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
