Hi readers!
Kathy Willis: professor of biodiversity at Oxford University Published a book titled “Good Nature” in December 2024. The article placed below is a quote from this book which Live Science published on November 10th, 2024 (before the book appeared).
Kathy writes,
“If we have greener environment around us, the incidence of mental disorder will be less” because
The green environment has significant effect on our mental health. The more the urbanization the more we lose a powerful weapon against respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
(The image above is how urbanization without greenery look like).
One of the tools that Kathy used in this study is biobanks: representing unique collections of data developed in the past few decades for understanding trends and patterns in human health. These are organized samples of biological material (blood, DNA, etc.,) and records of individuals from across a population, both diseased and healthy who were invited to join these biobanks and to record their personal data, medical records and tissue samples. These biobanks, therefore, represent a snapshot of the population covering different ages, gender, socioeconomic groups and locations. Many countries are now developing these banks. I once discuss this idea with my organization, but it could not materialize.
Another tool used in this study is capturing continental data via sensors attached on the satellites to have environmental picture via images captured globally at a resolution of 30 meter or less. This is necessary to understand the relationship between health and natural environmental features via “Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)” which is calculated by looking at the difference in the amount of visible “red light” (healthy plants) versus “near infrared light” (dying plants) that is reflected from vegetation.
NDVI measurements have revealed exciting correlations between the environment and the human health such as:
“The greener the environment in which our house is situated, the less depressed we will be”
The present study used NDVI and the UK biobank that revealed significant protective effect of green environments against depression. The study showed that irrespective of age, socioeconomic status and cultural differences, the incidence of mental health disorders is less under the greener environment compared to high urbanicity with profound effects on women, especially those under 60 years of age and in areas with low socioeconomic status. Similar findings with smaller sample size have been reported from the US, Spain, France, and South Africa.
Another study using large-scale population, health and satellite data found a link between death of millions of city street trees: the more trees dies, the higher will be the rate of respiratory illness and cardiovascular incidents.
The question is,
“if trees are remove from the city streets along with green canopies, does it have a negative impact on human health”?
Yes! It did. Example is infestation of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) native to North-Eastern Asia that moved from East to West across the U.S. in 2000s and killed over 100 million ash trees within two years of infestation.
By comparing the timing and location of the death of these trees with geolocated public health mortality records at the county level, it is revealed that an additional 6,113 human deaths related to respiratory illness and 15,080 cardiovascular-related deaths occurred across the country as consecutive counties became infested. The magnitude of this effect increased with increased infestation.
The study provided important information that can be used to compare an individual’s medical records, and any diseases they might have, with the environment in which they live. It is also important for policy makers who are struggling with the statistics of public health epidemics, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, increased anxiety, depression and suicide. In the U.K. alone, 7.6 million people are currently living with cardiovascular disease. The weapon to fight these modern-day plagues and health crises lies in more greenery and less urbanicity. The take home message is
The prescription is nature.
Dear readers! let me give you my personal example. When I moved from Faisalabad (where I used to live in a big, spacious, airy, and sunny house surrounded by big green trees) to Islamabad (where I started living in equally big, airy and spacious house with lots of sunshine but no greenery). After some time, I develop asthma like conditions which usually triggered in October and stays till March (mostly, the autumn season when the nearby trees also start shedding leaves).
After almost 4-5 years and continuous medication, I realized that probably the oxygen level drops in my lungs because I feel difficulty in breathing. After that feeling, I started planting trees and shrubs in our lawn to develop home garden. So much so that during CORONA pandemics, I created a full-fledged garden at my upper terrace because I was in Quarantine and was not allowed to breath in morning air full of oxygen. It is about 3 years now that my asthma is gone as if it was not there and oxygen level in my lungs is normal.
Will you believe this?
See you next week. Take care, Bye.
