In October we ran a fantastic wellness article, "Stay Ahead of Osteoporosis," about natural diet and lifestyle choices that bolster your bone health. One of the top expert suggestions was to eat an alkaline diet, favoring lots of fruits and vegetables, ditching refined sugar, and lessening intake of other acid-forming foods, such as meat and dairy. A new study conducted at Tufts backs up this idea.

Science Daily reports: "When fruits and vegetables are metabolized they add bicarbonate, an alkaline compound, to the body," said Dr. Dawson Hughes. "Our study found that bicarbonate had a favorable effect on bone resorption and calcium excretion. This suggests that increasing the alkali content of the diet may attenuate bone loss in healthy older adults."

Here's the alkaline diet in a nutshell (experted from our October article):

* Avoid large amounts of animal protein (meat), saturated fat, and phosphoric acid (soft drinks).

* Also go easy on grains, fish, poultry, shellfish, cheese, milk, and salt, which produce acid when digested by the body.

* Most fresh vegetables create an alkaline base, particularly dark green leafy vegetables, onions, sweet potatoes, yams, and celery.

* Alkaline-forming fruits include limes, raspberries, pineapples, grapefruits, and lemons (yes, citrus are generally alkaline-forming, despite their acid content).

* Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables also provides bone-building micronutrients.