Bone Broth: Paleo Goodness or Lead Toxicity Risk?

The consumption of bone marrow and bone broths have become more commonplace, and even hip, with the rise in popularity of several evolutionary-type diets. Those include the Paleo Diet, Perfect Health Diet and GAPS Diet. Bone broths are meant to be a staple in evolutionary-type diets as a rich source of calcium and other minerals. Bone broth is rich in calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, collagen, glucosamine, chondroitin, keratin and hyaluronic acid.

These constituents are nutritionally useful for many of the body's physiological processes, including: Bone growth and repair, glucose production and blood detoxification by the liver, tissue healing and maintenance, plasma production, digestion and absorption of nutrients, muscle contraction, and thyroid function.

However, a study published in the journal Medical Hypotheses raised concerns of lead contamination in bone broth. The researchers prepared three types of broth themselves from organic chickens rather than testing commercial products. Lead toxicity in humans can cause reproductive and gastrointestinal problems, neuropathy, anemia, abdominal pain, memory impairment, and depression.

Lead is stored in bones and the researchers found the bone broth contained 7.01 parts per billion of lead vs 0.89 ppb in tap water, and skin and cartilage broth contained 9.5 ppb. For comparison, the EPA's action level for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion, and its health-based goal is zero, because no level of lead exposure is known to be safe. It's also unclear whether pasture-raised animals might have less lead in their bones than standard grain-fed animals.

If you frequently consume bone broths, one prudent measure would be to have your doctor order a blood lead level, which will show whether your bone broth consumption has resulted in significant lead exposure.