Seeing this come up a lot again made me try to dig up some research again.
When specifically looking at electrolytes and other salts/minerals, as far as I can find all the research points to home made bone broth actually being fairly low in all (with perhaps some caveats).
There’s this analysis, which cites some research that most other places cite:
With probably the most direct cited paper here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1975347/
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s been a whole lot of scientific research on the matter. Some will argue that they didn’t cook these long enough or skipped a step, and that’s fair enough but there still appears to simply not be much evidence to support the claims about the electrolyte content.
Now, I specified ‘home made’ in particular because of some details mentioned in this experiment (though it’s not the same as a fully controlled, repeated and published work by a lab… even though it did involve a lab and some good care):
Bone Broth Analysis: Reader Research
Also, just because you are breaking down the physical structure of bones using heat and water, doesn’t mean that any “released” minerals will automatically go into solution (in ionic form). This is apparently hard to do unless you use industrial strength acids. She told me that many food companies face similar problems when formulating new recipes and trying to achieve consistent nutritional profiles. Any new ingredient, substitution or change in process can have a big influence on the end result, often in unpredictable ways.
You can also see in the link, while this particular person wasn’t looking for it, Potassium at least seams to be there in decent amounts, and sodium as well, but that’s in comparison to the other minerals. This is all per Liter, and while some around here may drink a Liter of broth a day, I’m not sure that’s common, and would need to be well considered against your other foods for the day considering how high in protein it is. That said, sprinkle 1/2 tsp of lo salt on your food in the day and you get about as much or more sodium and potassium.
From that, and the other research above indicates it as well I believe (and elsewhere) there is evidence that Bone Broth has pretty decent amounts of extra protein, and certainly it has extra water for you, so if you need those, it’s still beneficial, though it’s simple enough (and in many cases cheaper) to get protein and water otherwise.
I know plenty recommend it, even Dr. Phinney, though he also recommends the bullion cubes which are 1) commercial, and 2) may have different content and are certainly more concentrated (he does give recipes for making it yourself, but I wonder if he’s actually had the home made stuff tested).
I’m somewhat surprised with how popular this has become there hasn’t been more research on this, particularly as it’s probably one of the easier diet-health related areas to experiment with (we don’t have to do animal tests nor human studies nor questionnaires. This is more or less just a chemistry experiment).
If anyone has more recent research or actual lab analysis to show otherwise, I’d like to see that science myself, and get away from just anecdotes of “this makes me feel better, I love using it!”