Currants, the dark specks folded into scones and hot cross buns, are not currants. They are dried Black Corinth grapes, sold under a name that borrowed the wrong fruit.
The real currant is Ribes nigrum, the blackcurrant, a tart berry most American kitchens have never stocked. There is a reason for that.
In 1911 the federal government banned growing it, because the plant hosts a fungus, white pine blister rust, that was killing the timber pines. The ban lifted in 1966, but some states still restrict it, and the berry never fully returned to the American table.
What it carries is worth the reintroduction. Blackcurrants are one of the densest food sources of anthocyanins, the deep pigments that turn them almost black, mostly delphinidin and cyanidin rutinosides.
Those pigments have now been tied to bone in women near menopause. In a pilot trial published in the journal Nutrients in 2022, forty peri- and early postmenopausal women, ages forty-five to sixty, took blackcurrant extract or a matching placebo for six months.
The higher dose, 784 milligrams a day, significantly reduced the loss of whole-body bone density against placebo, and raised P1NP, a marker that the body is laying down new bone. The lower dose did less.
The mechanism the same group traced is not the obvious one. Bone is torn down and rebuilt without pause, and a signal called RANKL is what tells the demolition cells, the osteoclasts, to go to work.
The blackcurrant group showed lower RANKL and lower IL-1 beta, and the fall in RANKL tracked with the gain in bone. The berry also shifted the gut, raising a bacterium called Ruminococcus, which is why the researchers describe a gut-to-bone axis rather than a simple nutrient effect.
The trial was small, and that belongs in the reading. It was forty women over six months, whole-body density on a scan rather than fractures, and only the high dose moved the numbers.
7-Second “Toilet Move” Stops Pee Leaks
If you’re over 40 and struggle with embarrassing leaks when you laugh, sneeze, or stand up, you need to see this.
It’s a simple, 7-second “left-and-right” movement you can do right on the toilet that has the power to naturally strengthen your bladder and pelvic floor.
So far, thousands of women who have tried it say it works better than traditional Kegels or expensive pills.
Watch this short video and see for yourself:
The dose is the other catch. Those 784 milligrams were a concentrated extract in a capsule, not a bowl of fruit, and much of the osteoclast biology behind it still rests on cell and animal work.
This meets a midlife body where its bone math quietly reverses. Estrogen was the main thing holding RANKL in check, and as it withdraws that signal grows louder, so bone comes down faster than it goes back up.
The anthocyanins are not estrogen. They work on that same RANKL from the gut-and-immune side, a route estrogen never had to use, so the order to slow the breakdown still gets sent once the hormone goes quiet.
The Pantry Prescription
WHAT TO BUY:
A blackcurrant extract or freeze-dried blackcurrant powder that lists Ribes nigrum and a milligram amount of anthocyanins on the label. This is not the dried currants in the baking aisle, which are grapes, and not blackcurrant seed oil, which is a separate product for a different purpose. The trial used a standardized extract.
HOW MUCH:
The dose that worked was 784 milligrams a day of the extract, which carried about 352 milligrams of anthocyanins. The half dose did noticeably less, so match the anthocyanin number on the label rather than the weight of the powder.
HOW OFTEN:
Once a day, thought of in months. The trial ran six months before it measured anything, because bone changes slowly, so this is a long, quiet effort rather than something you dose and feel.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
Realistically nothing you can notice, since bone density is invisible day to day. In the trial the benefit appeared only on a scan at six months and only at the higher dose, so treat it as quiet insurance for the skeleton, not a symptom that lifts. Actual bone status is tracked by a clinician with a DXA scan and blood markers.
WHAT IT COSTS:
Blackcurrant extract capsules run about fifteen to thirty dollars a month, and freeze-dried powder about ten to twenty dollars for a small bag. Frozen blackcurrants for eating are a few dollars a pound where you can find them.
WHO SHOULD ASK FIRST:
If you take a blood thinner such as warfarin or a daily antiplatelet, or you have surgery coming, ask first, since concentrated berry extracts, and blackcurrant seed oil in particular, can nudge bleeding. Food amounts of the fruit are not the concern. If your bone is already thinning, this belongs alongside a clinician's plan of calcium, vitamin D, weight-bearing exercise, and medication where it is warranted, not in place of it. In pregnancy or breastfeeding, keep to the fruit and leave concentrated extracts unless your clinician approves.
Warm Blackcurrant Soup
In a small pot, warm one cup of frozen blackcurrants, half a cup of water, and a strip of lemon peel over medium heat until it steams and the berries soften, pressing a few against the side to release their color, about three minutes.
Stir two teaspoons of cornstarch into a tablespoon of cold water until smooth, then pour it in with one tablespoon of maple syrup and stir over low heat for two to three minutes, until it thickens into a loose, spoonable soup.
Lift out the lemon peel and eat it warm in a bowl, plain or with a spoonful of yogurt stirred through; this is a fine reason to keep blackcurrants in the freezer, though the tart fruit here is nowhere near the concentrated extract dose the bone trial used.
