Dried plums, the dried fruit formerly (and still widely) known as prunes, have been touted for their health benefits, and most notably their digestive health benefits, for generations, but new research being conducted at Florida State University, San Diego State University and elsewhere at the behest of the California Dried Plum Board, is validating those venerable claims and is, moreover, giving the fruit a basis for some powerful new health messaging.

Research done in recent years is “helping to drive our new messaging,” said Donn Zea, executive director of the organization.

A number of recent studies have demonstrated a benefit from dried plum consumption in terms of bone density. One released just last year is a study on osteoporosis in post menopausal women out of Florida State University by Bahram Arjmandi, chairman of the department of nutrition, food and exercise science, who concluded, “All fruits and vegetables have a positive effect on nutrition, but in terms of bone health, this particular food is exceptional.” The study was published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

Arjmandi found that eating eight to 10 prunes a day can actually help generate new bone growth, said Zea. “We are doing an additional study, a follow-up to that” at San Diego State that will look at benefits to bone health of about half that number of dried plums per day. “We should have those results by next spring.”

Arjmandi “encourages people who are interested in maintaining or improving their bone health to take note of the extraordinarily positive effect that dried plums have on bone density,” according to an Aug. 16, 2011, press release on the study.

There also appears to be a connection between dental health and dried plum consumption, Zea said. “Data so far are positive” that eating plums may not only reduce tooth decay but could potentially improve jawbone health.

Historically, prune health benefits have been associated in the public mind mainly with the elderly, but “we are looking at younger age groups” who may benefit from eating dried prunes as “a preventative measure, as the reduction of bone mass actually starts, for some, in their late 20s and early 30s,” Zea said.

As for the use of the term “dried plums” vs. “prunes, “ the two are interchangeable as far as Zea is concerned. The board still recognizes the product as prunes “and we are proud of it,” he said. However, “we did focus groups with Millennials, and there is an absolute consensus that ‘dried plums’ is much more acceptable term for those in their 20s.”

Other studies involve weight management, satiety, metabolic syndrome and cognitive function, he said.

There is “a big development on the front of digestive health,” Zea said. “the European Food Safety Authority, which is arguably the toughest standard in the world” to get approval for a health or nutrition claim, has given dried plums “a positive declaration that allows for us now to be able to use on packaging in Europe” the message that “eating prunes is good for digestive health. No one else has been able to do that, including the yogurts of the world. We are the only one, and it took us a long time and lots of research. That is a big step for us, and Europe is a really important market.”

The board continues to work with Olympic swimming gold medalist and world champion Natalie Coughlin, who has been representing California dried plums as celebrity spokesperson for several years.

The board’s public communications outreach last year garnered close to 700 million impressions, Zea said. The focus is increasingly on “much more of a Millennial demographic” rather than the traditional older audience.

“We are looking for opportunities to reach out to a much younger audience that enjoys natural foods, not supplements.“

Prune plum acreage in California has been on decline over the past four or five years, having dropped from about a 60,000 bearing acres down to about 51,000 this year, Zea said. “It is an expensive crop to grow, the market has been depressed, and we have had an oversupply situation.”

However, the situation appears to be stabilizing, he said. Growers now seem “a little bit more optimistic about keeping their prunes in the ground.” Prices have been improving, and growers “might tend to think that better times are ahead.”

The 2013 harvest appears to be coming in somewhere between 85,000 and 90,000 tons, which is lower than the already lighter-than-normal 105,000 ton estimate made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistical Service in June. That reduction will exacerbate an already short supply of prune plums globally, Zea said.

The reduced crop, he said, was a result of the impact of erratic temperatures during the growing season. The impact varied depending on “where you were in the growing region.”

Although crop volume is down, “the quality is very good” and “the fruit is a little bit larger than average," he said.