United States: The latest study suggests that having grooves of trees and shrubs in your surroundings could bring a major health boost.
According to researchers of the University of Louisville, reports at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology annual meeting in Santiago, Chile, show that people with larger numbers of trees and shrubs have double the chances of lower inflammation levels compared to other locations nearby.
What more did the experts state?
According to Kim Schatzel, the president of the University of Louisville, “Trees are beautiful, but these results show that the trees around us are also beneficial to individual and community health,” as US News reported.
For the study purposes, researchers examined adding eight thousand plus large trees and shrubs to some neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky, leaving others.
The plantings occurred from 2019 to 2022 across a four-square-mile section of south Louisville in low- to middle-income neighborhoods.
The scientists’ group then made a comparison of 745 residents’ health data to analyze the amount of improvement that improved greenery might have caused to their overall well-being.
What do the study results find?
The output revealed that residents staying in the greener surroundings had 13 percent to 20 percent lower levels of biomarkers, which generally have an association with inflammation called high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP).
Furthermore, as researchers explained, the higher levels of such markers indicate a higher risk of heart-related problems and an even stronger signal of an imminent heart attack. Furthermore, these also indicate a higher probability of diabetes and some cancers.
Furthermore, lowering hsCRP is prominent in greener neighborhoods, having an association with 10 to 15 percent of lesser risks of heart attacks, cancer, and death from any disease, said researchers.
As per Aruni Bhatnagar, the senior researcher and a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, “Trees contribute more to our lives than beauty and shade. They can improve the health of the people living around them,” as US News reported.
Moreover, “Although several previous studies have found an association between living in areas of high surrounding greenness and health, this is the first study to show that a deliberate increase in greenness in the neighborhood can improve health,” Bhatnagar added.
Therefore, as Bhatnager mentioned, “This finding will bolster the push to increase urban green spaces.”