Living near trees, plants and other greenery ‘could reduce a person’s biological age by 2.2 to 2.6 years,’ researchers write.
The length of a person’s telomeres — protective caps on the ends of DNA in their cells — is a marker of stress and age. And people living in places with plentiful green space have longer telomeres, a new analysis finds. But green space alone isn’t enough to buffer the health effects of social and physical factors such as discrimination, past redlining and pollution, the researchers warn.
Live well every day with tips and guidance on food, fitness and mental health, delivered to your inbox every Thursday., published in Science of the Total Environment, used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which took biological samples from participants from 1999 through 2001. Researchers analyzed telomere length data from 7,827 adult participants’ DNA, matching that data to demographic and neighborhood information.
But along with the positive news about green space and telomeres, the researchers write that green space itself is not powerful enough to counteract the health effects of neighborhood variables such as segregation, deprivation and the legacies of discriminatory housing policies. Once the researchers adjusted for those factors, they say, the effect of living near green space vanished.
Those factors may “overwhelm any beneficial impact that comes from exposure to greenspace,” the researchers write. More research is needed to tease out the effects of neighborhood factors and green-space exposure on individual health, they conclude.Internet partially restored in Gaza; Netanyahu says Israel has entered second stage of war
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