Healthy bone is living tissue that supports, frames, and protects the body with flexibility and strength. Minerals in the matrix make bones hard, but collagen keeps them resilient. The last thing we want is brittle bones.
Bones serve us in many other ways as well: They allow our bodies to deposit and withdraw minerals; produce blood cells, stem cells, and growth factors; serve to buffer our blood against excessive pH changes; and even store energy. In Chinese medicine, deep “bone consciousness” is thought to ground and stabilize the life of the spirit. Poets favor the word marrow when writing of primal and mystical interior journeys.
Bones for Minerals
Made from bones, broth provides a variety of bioavailable minerals. The exact mineral content found in bones depends upon the overall health, age, diet, and environment of the animal as well as the species. About 50 percent of bone is minerals, 28 percent collagen, and 22 percent water. Of the minerals, the largest store by far is calcium phosphate, a combination of calcium and phosphorous arranged in a formation called hydroxyapatite.
Bone also contains small amounts of magnesium, sodium, potassium, sulfur, and other trace minerals. Given all the calcium in bone, it’s reasonable to think broth would be an excellent source of this important mineral. Many people even claim its calcium content rivals that of dairy foods and recommend bone broth as a good substitute for people who cannot tolerate milk or other dairy products.
In fact, the level of calcium in broth does not come even close. The most thorough study of this topic occurred in 1934 when researchers reported the calcium content of several types of bone broth at just 5.2 to 28.6 mg per 100 cc (12.30 to 67.7 mg per cup). The researchers compared this to 119 to 128 mg calcium per 100 cc (281 to 303 mg per cup) in cow’s milk.
Recent testing confirms the low calcium levels found in 1934. Saffron Road and Flavor Chef broths, two excellent brands sold in health food stores, bear Nutrition Facts labels reporting 0 percent and 4 percent, respectively, per cup of the RDA for calcium. (As published by the National Academy of Sciences, the basic RDA for calcium is 1000 mg per day, but up to 1300 mg per day for boys and girls between nine and eighteen, for pregnant and lactating women under the age of nineteen, and 1200 mg per day for women over the age of fifty-one and men over the age of seventy one.)
USDA figures for brand-name canned broths sold at supermarkets show calcium at 14 mg per cup (1.4% of the RDA) for beef and 9 mg (.9% of the RDA) per cup for chicken. By comparison, USDA reports 291 mg of calcium per cup for whole milk. Recent analyses of broth by Covance Laboratories of Madison, Wisconsin, also found low levels of calcium at 2.31 mg per cup for broth made by Kim Schuette, CN, of Biodynamic Wellness of Solana Beach, California (from a whole Mary’s Free Range Chicken plus two chicken feet and no vegetables), and 6.14 mg per cup for Flavor Chef broth made with bones and vegetables.
The low calcium figures appear to be true even when long-term cooking softens and largely dissolves the bone. What’s more, these figures are for broth made with the help of vinegar to help pull minerals from the bone. It appears the best way to increase the calcium content of broth is to include calcium-rich vegetables while making the broth and milk or cream in broth-based sauces.
Despite its low calcium content, broth apparently supports bone health. While levels of calcium and trace minerals may be low, they are nonetheless easily assimilated and present in appropriate ratios for bone building. In contrast, bone-building supplements are often formulated with high levels of calcium that are hard to absorb and missing full complements of bone-building trace minerals. Bone, after all, is not built on calcium alone.
Collagen for Strong Bones
The larger reason broth supports bone building is its high collagen content. Broth, of course, contains collagen dissolved not only from the bone itself but also from the attached skin and cartilage. The basic building blocks of bone are collagen fibrils that form a latticework for deposition of calcium phosphate and other minerals. The collagen cross-links are more important for whole bone strength and fracture resistance than mineral levels and patterns.
Broken Back
"My son in law was in a horrific truck accident and broke his back in two places. He had to wear a brace and the projected time for healing was at least three months. He went back for a check up and X rays at two months and they were amazed. His back was almost totally healed. It really was amazing. My daughter was feeding him bone broth all day long. She made it all herself, chicken broth, beef broth, and venison broth. She made soups and stews, cooked grains in broth, and otherwise got broth into him as often as possible. The medical professionals were astounded with how quickly he healed. It was truly amazing. We attribute his strong healing to the broth."
—Candace Coffin, Hillsville, Virginia
Indeed, some people have bones thick with calcium and other minerals that are weak and crack under tension like unreinforced concrete. Diabetics, for example, may suffer from poor bones, not because of low mineral density but because their collagen is damaged by the advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) created when blood sugar levels are chronically high.
Although most published collagen studies have focused on osteoarthritis, Milan Adam, DSci of the Institute of Rheumatism Research in Prague (1928–2008), studied 120 osteoporosis patients over a period of three years. He treated half with calcium and half with collagen hydrolysate. The breakdown of substances indicating loss of collagen and bone mass were significantly lower in the collagen hydrolysate group than in the calcium group. Best of all, collagen hydrolysate reduced the likelihood of bone fractures significantly.
A few years later, in 1996, he published a study on 108 postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and bone mineral density lower than 80 percent. He reported collagen hydrolysate enhanced and prolonged the beneficial effects of calcitonin and improved overall markers of bone metabolism. Calcitonin is a hormone secreted by the thyroid that has the effect of lowering blood calcium.
In 2000, Roland Moskowitz, MD, of Case Western Reserve University, reported success with collagen hydrolysate for both osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. He, too, found calcitonin plus collagen hydrolysate inhibited bone collagen breakdown better than calcitonin alone, making it “of interest as a therapeutic agent of potential utility in the treatment of osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Its high level of safety makes it attractive as an agent for long-term use in these chronic disorders.”
Bone Building
"Today I saw a new gynecologist, a nurse practitioner who had just moved from New Jersey to Florida. She did a fine job with my annual exam and then asked me a few questions. One was “Are you taking a daily calcium supplement for your bones?” “No,” I replied. “Oh,” she said, “that’s dangerous. You need 1200 to 1500 milligrams of calcium a day—” “But,” I interrupted her, “I eat bone broth from grass-fed animals all the time. It’s part of the Weston A. Price Foundation’s recommended diet. That way I get all the bone-building minerals I need, not just one in isolation. Before I started I lost 12 percent of my total bone density in a year, but the next year with the bone broth I gained back 19 percent. I can hardly wait to see what my results will be this year.” “You know,” she replied, “you’re the second person to tell me about bone broth. The other one was an elderly woman from Ecuador who said she put eggs in her broth and eats it on a regular basis.”
—Kathy R., Winter Haven, Florida
With osteoporosis a threat for forty-four million American men and women over the age of fifty, these findings on collagen need to be taken seriously. For years, osteoporosis prevention relied on calcium alone. The focus then shifted to massive doses of vitamin D plus calcium, perhaps with a complement of trace minerals. But if we look back at the diets of traditional people who retained strong, flexible bones throughout long and productive lives, it’s apparent the answer lies in nourishing food, not in pills. While it’s fortunate that modern science supports bone building with food-based collagen hydrolysate and gelatin, the better—and tastier—solution is daily bowls of nourishing broth.
