Living near green spaces extends life

It’s nothing new but many studies confirm the beneficial effects of a lifetime as close to green as possible. The latest, posted on Science Advances, reiterates precisely that city parks and green spaces not only serve to counteract the heat, to increase biodiversity and communicate a sense of calm in the urban chaos. But they also help slow down thebiological aging. People who have easy access to green spaces, explains the survey by the Freinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, are 2.5 years younger of those who do not have this daily opportunity.

“Living near green areas can help you be younger than your real age,” he told theafp Kyeezu Kimlead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the Feinberg School of Medicine – we believe our findings have significant implications for the urban planning in terms of expanding green infrastructure to promote public health and reduce health inequalities. Previously, as mentioned, easy exposure to green spaces had been linked with better cardiovascular health and lower mortality rates, even quantifying the time needed to spend in nature.

To investigate the point, the team looked at chemical modifications of DNA known as “methylation»: previous works had shown that the so-called «epigenetic clocks» based on DNA methylation poss over 900 white and African American people residents of four US cities – Birmingham, Chicago, Minneapolis and Oakland – for a period of twenty yearsbetween 1986 and 2006. All by crossing their data – collected with blood tests taken at the 15th and 20th year of the study – with the satellite images relating to the areas where the volunteers have resided over the years, to understand how close they were to the vegetation and parks. The goal was precisely to determine their biological age with respect to exposure to greenery, also thanks to the help of statistical models that also considered education, income and other behavioral choices such as smoking.

The result? The people whose dwellings they were surrounded by at least 30% green area within a five-kilometre radius at best they were 2.5 years biologically younger when compared to those who lived surrounded by only the 20%. However, the benefits were not the same for everyone. For example, African Americans with the greatest access to green spaces were biologically younger by only one year, while the advantage for whites rose to three years.

“Other factors such as lo stressthe quality of the surrounding green space and more social support can influence the degree of benefits of green spaces in terms of biological aging» explained Kim, clarifying that these disparities that emerged from the survey require further study. For example, parks located in some deprived neighborhoods and used for illegal activities may be less popular, negating the benefits of living near a green area. Furthermore, the exact mechanism by which natural areas reduce aging is still unclear.

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