This paper sheds more light on how nature affects our bodies and builds on existing knowledge about the health benefits of living around green. Researchers investigated long-term exposure to green surroundings and how it affected biological aging in a group of more than 900 people in four US cities.
“Proximity to green space causes biological or molecular changes that can be detected in the blood,” said Liefang Hou, a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the study’s principal investigator. Our research shows that
How Nature ‘Gets Under Our Skin’
To investigate the link between long-term exposure to greenery and aging, the researchers measured age-associated biological changes in study participants over 20 years in green areas near where they lived. compared with the data of By using blood DNA and analyzing small changes in the function of genes associated with the aging process, it was possible to measure biological age at the molecular level, Hou said.
When a person’s biological age (which can be earlier or later depending on lifestyle) is older than their chronological age, they develop age-related health conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease She said it could be risky. she said.
Biological age “depends a lot on what we do every day,” such as what we eat and how much physical activity we do, Ho said. But the study highlights that it’s not just what each person is doing for their health personally that matters, but also about their neighborhoods and communities, she said.
“We know the benefits of green space in reducing premature mortality,” said David Rojas Rueda, professor of epidemiology at Colorado State University. He studies the health benefits of vegetation, but was not involved in his latest paper.
“This study explains how this happens by explaining how green spaces can change the way genes are expressed,” he wrote in an email. rice field.
“This is one of the first studies to really demonstrate contact with nature and how we live. added Peter James, an environmental epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who studies nature and health. research.
To assess green space, the researchers used satellite imagery and applied a widely accepted scale to quantify vegetation, said Kies, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Mr Kim said. Kim added that they also identified major parks near the participants’ homes. While this helped identify the location and quantity of vegetation, this approach does not provide details about its type (e.g., whether the area is a golf course or a forested nature trail) and the quality of the green space. is not obtained.
“We have this vegetation data, but it tells us very little about what the active ingredients in nature are that affect health,” says James. “It just tells you how much plants you have in a certain area around your house.”
Karen Seto, director of the Hickson Center for Urban Ecology at Yale School of Environmental Studies, says it’s important to learn more about the green spaces studied and what people do in them.
“I don’t know what kind of green space it is, so I guess they don’t know if it’s enough for a city to have a lot of street trees,” Seto said, not contributing to the new research. rice field.
The study also leaves other open questions, such as why the rate of biological aging is not the same across race, gender and socioeconomic status. For example, the researchers observed that blacks with more access to green spaces were biologically only about one year younger, compared to the study’s average of 2.5 years.
Experts said more research is needed to pinpoint exactly how people benefit from being green and what other social determinants are involved.
In the meantime, Hou said the study should encourage people to think more about their surroundings when making healthy living decisions, in addition to diet, sleep and exercise.
The research will also motivate policy makers to integrate nature into people’s daily lives, James said.
“We need to change the way we look at green space and really see it as an essential piece of infrastructure in the same way we see sewers and garbage collection,” he says. “This is what humans need to grow and be healthy.”
