Prune Juice: A Natural Constipation Treatment

People who have looked into constipation treatments have likely learned about the prune. Prunes are thought to be good for treating constipation, possibly because of their high fiber content. However, many people don’t know that prune juice is also a good constipation treatment.

The scientific term for the plum is the Prunus domestica, from which prunes are made. Anthropologists studying ancient civilizations have found evidence that cultivation of plums and processing into prunes is a very old activity dating back thousands of years. To this day, the process remains the same. Plums are dried for about 20 hours in hot air just under 100 degrees C. From there, extra processing leads to other prune-derived products.

The usual understanding for most people is that prunes are good natural laxatives because of their dietary fiber content. How then does prune juice, which has no fiber at all because of filtration, help those who suffer from constipation? The answer is that sorbitol, a polysaccharide sugar substitute, has some wondrous laxative properties.

Sorbitol is present at almost 15% by weight of prunes, and 6% by weight of prune juice. It’s a complex, polymeric sugar. That means on the molecular scale, it’s a very long chain of sugars. This property allows it to absorb and retain water in the gut as it passes through. In fact, it sometimes is used as a sugar substitute in foods that are labeled “sugar free”.

Pears and sugar free gum are two other things with sorbitol. Of course, the pear has a higher amount and is presumably a good aid for digestion as well. One interesting fact is that dietary fiber has molecular properties that are very similar to sugar and sorbitol. It’s no coincidence that all of these laxatives have similar molecular characteristics.

What gives sorbitol its powerful anti-constipation effects? Two things that we have mentioned are responsible: the fact that sorbitol goes through the gut without being digested and the fact that sorbitol has a tendency to retain a lot of water in the intestine. Together, this means that foods with sorbitol will become bulky with fluids.

With excess water, the colon contents become less dense and pass more easily through the body. The class of laxatives that exerts its effects through water retention is known as the osmotic laxatives. Prune juice is convenient to store and take all day. However, as with any type of self-administered laxative treatment, it’s probably best to ask a physician for safety and dosing instructions.

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