Does broth or bone broth actually do anything for your bones?

Bone broth is often promoted as beneficial for your bones, but the available research has been conducted exclusively in rats, not in humans. In one animal experiment, rats in which osteoporosis had been induced (by removing their ovaries) were given chicken-vegetable bone broth. Their bone density and bone volume declined noticeably less than in rats that received no broth.

What appears to help in that rat experiment are two substances naturally present in bone broth: hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate. In cell culture experiments, these substances most strongly inhibited the formation of bone-resorbing cells. Bone-resorbing cells break down bone tissue, so fewer of those cells means less bone loss. In the rat model, a purified version containing only those two substances produced a comparable effect to the complete broth.

Translating this to humans is still a major step. There is not a single published study demonstrating that drinking bone broth improves bone density in humans. How much hyaluronic acid and chondroitin sulfate are present in a normal serving of home-cooked broth, and whether these are well absorbed through the gut, has likewise not been investigated in the studies provided. The doses that worked in the rat research cannot simply be translated to a typical daily serving of broth.

If you want to protect your bones, there are proven means available, such as adequate calcium, vitamin D, and weight-bearing exercise, but these fall outside the scope of this research. Whether bone broth makes a meaningful contribution to those is impossible to say at this point.