Hake fish bone as a calcium source for efficient bone mineralization

Abstract

Calcium is recognized as an essential nutritional factor for bone health. An adequate intake is important to achieve or maintain optimal bone mass in particular during growth and old age. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficiency of hake fish bone (HBF) as a calcium source for bone mineralization: in vitro on osteosarcoma SaOS-2 cells, cultured in Ca-free osteogenic medium (OM) and in vivo on young growing rats fed a low-calcium diet. Lithotame (L), a Ca supplement derived from Lithothamnium calcareum, was used as control. In vitro experiments showed that HBF supplementation provided bone mineralization similar to standard OM, whereas L supplementation showed lower activity. In vivo low-Ca HBF-added and L-added diet similarly affected bone deposition. Physico-chemical parameters concerning bone mineralization, such as femur breaking force, tibia density and calcium/phosphorus mineral content, had beneficial effects from both Ca supplementations, in the absence of any evident adverse effect. We conclude HBF derived from by-product from the fish industry is a good calcium supplier with comparable efficacy to L.

Keywords:

• Calcium
• diet supplement
• hake bone flour
• lithotame
• phosphate

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr Franco Dalla Cia (12 Lovell St., Stellenbosch, SA) for suggesting and supporting this study. Grateful acknowledgment to Dr Dalla Cia and Etale Fishing Coo. Ltd (Walvis Bay, Namibia), for providing Lithotame and hake bones. We are also indebted with Dr. Ernesto Mario Zambini for technical assistance in HBF preparation, acidic extraction, mineralization and atomic absorption spectroscopy and with Dr Piero Franceschi for Lithotame’s analyses.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest, either financial or personal relationships with other people or organizations that could influence this work.