According to a small new experiment, playing through the greenery and debris of Mini Forest’s undergrowth for just a month may be enough to change a child’s immune system.
When daycare workers in Finland do not bring in workers, cultivate forest lands such as dwarf heather and blueberries, and allow children to take care of crops in planter boxes, the variety of microbes in the skin of courage and young children appeared very healthy. Short time.
These green daycare centers in Finland have an increase in T-cells and other vital immunity compared to other city children playing in standard urban daycare with pavement, tile and gravel, 3-, 4- and 5-year-old yards. Markers in their blood within 28 days.
Marja Rosland, an environmental scientist at the University of Helsinki, says, “We also found that the intestinal microbiota of children receiving greenery was similar to the intestinal microbiota of children visiting the forest every day.”
Before a daily care (left) and after the introduction of grass and planting (right). (University of Helsinki)
Previous research has shown that early exposure to green space is somehow linked to a well-functioning immune system, but it is not yet clear whether that relationship is causal.
The experiment in Finland explicitly manipulates the child’s urban environment and then tests their microbiome changes and, in turn, the child’s immunity.
While the findings do not have all the answers, they support a leading idea – that changes in environmental microbes can relatively easily affect well-established microbiome in children, helping their immune system to process.
The notion that an environment rich in living things affects our immune system is known as the ‘biodiversity notion’. Based on that hypothesis, the loss of biodiversity in urban areas may be at least partly responsible for the recent rise in immune-related diseases.
The authors write, “The results of this study support the biodiversity hypothesis and the notion that low biodiversity in the modern living environment can lead to an educated immune system and consequently increase the prevalence of immune-mediated diseases.”
The study compared the environmental microbes found in the yards of 10 different urban decares, caring for a total of 75 children aged 3 to 5 years.
Some of these daycare had standard urban yards with concrete and gravel, others took the children out for daily nature time and four updated the yard with their grass and forest growth.
Over the next 28 days, these last four daycare children were given time to play in their new backyard five times a week.
When the researchers tested their skin and intestinal microbiota before and after, they found improved results compared to the first group of children playing in the decker with less greenery for the same period of time.
Even in that short period of study, the researchers found microbes on the skin and guts of children who regularly played in green spaces, bound to a customized healthy immune system.
Their results largely matched those of another group of children in daily care who had time of a daily nature.
In excreted children, playing among dirt, grass and trees, an increase in a bacterium called gammaproteobacteria was seen to boost the skin’s immune defenses, as well as boost the immune secretion in the blood and decrease the content of interleukin. 17A, which is linked to immune infectious diseases.
“This supports the notion that contact with nature prevents disorders in the immune system, such as autoimmune diseases and allergies,” says Sinkcon.
The results are not conclusive and will need to be tested in larger studies worldwide. Still, the benefits of green spaces go beyond our immune system.
Research shows that going out is also good for a child’s eyesight, and being in nature as a child is associated with better mental health. Some recent studies have also shown that green spaces are associated with structural changes in children’s brains.
It is not yet clear what these incredible results are driving. It can be linked to changes in the immune system or breathing in healthy air, soaking in the sun, exercising more, or gaining more peace of mind.
Given the complexities of the real world, it is really difficult to control all the environmental factors that affect our health in the study.
While the incidence of asthma and allergies in rural children is low, the literature available on the link between green spaces and this immune disorder is inconsistent.
Current research has the size of a small sample, only one correlation was found, and children cannot account for what children do outside of daily care hours, but enough changes have been seen to give some advice to Finnish scientists.
Aki Sinkcon, an environmental biologist at the University of Helsinki, also encouraged that if children could play in the puddles and dig every biological soil.
“We will take our children to nature five times a week to have an effect on the microbes.”
The changes are simple, the harm is small and the potential benefits are wide.
The bond with nature as a child is also good for the future of our planet’s ecosystems. Studies show that children who spend time outside want to be as environmentalist as adults, and in a rapidly changing world, that is more important than ever.
Sinkconen advises that just make sure everyone is up-to-date on their titans vaccination.
The study was published in Science progress.
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