A patient came in the other day saying that he had found a new miracle drug for inflammation – boron! He had been taking just a few milligrams a day for a week and his knee pain and restriction had completely gone away. That sounded pretty impressive to me. I knew of the importance of boron for bone strength, but I had never heard of boron for inflammation. When I come across a new bit of information for myself, I like to fill it out a bit more by doing ‘library’ research, which these days means looking up research papers on PubMed to see what actual tested evidence there is for this thing. We are all so different that any given substance may be a miracle for one person and do nothing for the next hundred people. Research gives us some idea about how effective something is for the average person.
As I start doing my information gathering, I discover that there is a lot of interesting information about boron floating around out there. Typically we get boron from the groundwater and various foods like almonds, avocados, prunes, raisins, and apples. But the boron in foods is entirely dependent upon the amount of boron in the soil. Here in California, we have one of the greatest deposits of boron anywhere down in Death Valley. This is where US Borax mines the natural mineral form of boron — borax. That’s right. The stuff that was used to wash clothes back in the old days is also important for your health in tiny amounts. Notice I said tiny! A tablespoon of this stuff can kill you (10 to 20 grams.) Everything in the body has an optimal level – too much or too little causes problems and can even kill you.
So what have we got as good news with boron? I mentioned I was aware of the importance of trace amounts of boron for building bone and preventing osteoporosis. Boron is necessary for the bone-building cells called osteoblasts to want to build bone. Our bones are constantly both building and unbuilding. It is kind of like what we have to do with our asphalt roads. We have to constantly tear out the cracked old road surface and replace it with new asphalt every so many years. When the bone tear- down cells (osteoclasts) keep doing their job but the bone rebuilding cells (osteoblasts) are not doing theirs, you get osteoporosis. What I discovered was that boron also helps prevent osteoarthritis. Looking at boron consumption around the world (variations due to boron levels in the soil), it was found that in areas where the boron consumption per day was less than 1 milligram, the osteoarthritis levels in the population varied from around 20% to 70%. In areas of the world where daily boron consumption was at least 3 milligrams, the osteoarthritis levels were from 0% to 10%. Quite a difference! Arthritic bone is found to have a 20-fold decrease in boron. In cases of mild to medium osteoarthritis, a daily 6 mg dose for 4 weeks reduced pain by 62% and in 8 weeks they achieved an average 71% pain reduction. Similar improvements were noted for joint mobility.
Boron appears to directly decrease the activity of various inflammatory cytokines such as TNF alpha which drive inflammation. Boron has also been found to decrease the activity of certain enzymes that are key to the inflammatory process (such as NF kappa B). Toward this end, various boron-based chemical compounds have been developed for treating skin inflammations like eczema. Along a similar line, boron down-regulates PSA, the marker used to check on the prostate in blood tests. The more boron you have in you the lower your PSA levels are. So far we have boron helping bones, joints, skin, and prostates! What else?
Boron speeds up wound healing! One study found that just a 3% solution of boric acid (borax in water) applied to deep wounds reduced healing time by 65%. It directly affects the enzymes that build collagen and elastin in the skin. In a similar vein, boron helps with preventing bleeding gums. Boron increases the activity of the fibroblasts that form your skin everywhere, so if you want to keep your skin looking younger and more elastic then boron is for you.
One of the ways boron significantly affects our health is in how it helps us absorb magnesium. Magnesium is vital in so many different body systems and pathways, yet it is considered the most common nutrient deficiency in the US. Boron helps prevent this by increasing how much magnesium we are able to absorb. It not only increases magnesium absorption at the level of the gut but also increases laying down the magnesium in the bones.
Another big area of benefit from boron is in our hormone health. Vitamin D is actually a hormone and boron increases serum levels of vitamin D. In one study on postmenopausal women, boron was found to increase their vitamin D levels by 39% over the course of 49 days. Part of this increase seems to come from slowing down how rapidly vitamin D is destroyed in the body. This is especially important these days as vitamin D is our number one defense against the current virus running around everywhere. This same hormone-sparing effect of boron also increases our levels of sex hormones — testosterone and estradiol. This could possibly be a contraindication to taking boron if you are currently taking a drug specifically designed to reduce your levels of hormones, such as drugs for enlarged prostate. However, the real concern with an enlarged prostate is cancer, and folks whose diet supplied at least 2 mg of boron had less than half the incidence of prostate cancer than those who only got 0.9 mg of boron from their diet. Another consideration for older folks in which muscle wasting is a significant cause/predictor of death, increasing testosterone levels by 20-30% would be very helpful in building the needed muscle (assuming they are eating the extra protein they need.)
I mentioned cancer, and there is good clinical evidence that boron significantly reduces the risk of lung cancer. Associative data also exists for the reduction of breast, cervical, and prostate cancers with boron. Another interesting benefit of boron is in its ability to assist with heavy metal toxicity. The DNA damage caused by arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead is all decreased by boron. Even the brain benefits from boron. Folks that show a deficiency of boron are far more likely to develop cognition problems as they age than those with adequate levels. It seems like boron is useful just about everywhere.
So how can you be sure you are getting enough boron? Fortunately, boron absorbs easily in the gut, so diet is a good source. Raisins, almonds, hazelnuts, avocados, prunes, and dried apricots appear to be the best sources. Almonds and avocados are my favorite sources. You can also take actual boron supplements from the health food store. In that form, you want to take around 3 to 6 mg per day. Do you need extra boron? I have no idea. There are no tests I am aware of that check for your boron levels. The simplest approach I will use is to take some supplements for 2 months and see how I feel. If I am deficient then surely with all the things that boron does I should notice some improvements somewhere.
When I started researching for this topic, I did not expect to find much to write about. Boy was I wrong. This micro-nutrient appears to be involved in so many systems in significant ways. I am very surprised that I am not reading or hearing anything about this subject anywhere out there in the health communities and online information sources. Well, now we know, and knowledge is power!
Take care,
David