Keep those thumbs green: Gardening reduces disease risk new study finds

Research now shows what enthusiasts have been saying for years—gardening is good for your health. Gardening is an affordable, scalable and sustainable way to reduce disease risk, especially among people in low-income communities, researchers wrote in Lancet Planetary Health. In what may be the first a blinded randomized controlled trial for community gardening, researchers compared the outcomes of urban participants who started gardening to those who didn't. The Community Activation for Prevention Study (CAPS) investigated the effect of community gardens on health behaviours and psychosocial outcome. Primary outcomes were diet, physical activity and anthropometry. Secondary outcomes were stress and anxiety. Researchers recruited adults aged 18 and over who were on waiting lists for any of 37 community gardens in Denver and Aurora, Co., and focused on low-income areas. Participants had not gardened in the past two years and were randomized to receive a community garden plot (the intervention group) or remain on a waiting list (the control group). A total of 291 adults were included. Of these, 145 were randomly assigned to the gardening intervention and 146 to the control group. The mean age of participants was 41.5 years, (82%) were female, and 52 (18%) were male. Gardening workshops, seeds and seedlings were available for free and subjects were offered opportunities for social interaction, community building and mentorship. Between Jan. 1, 2017, and June 15, 2019 participants completed diet surveys, seven-day accelerometry, health surveys and anthropometry at three points throughout the study period (before randomization in spring, the fall, and winter). Health visits were also conducted. To measure physical activity, participants wore thigh-mounted accelerometers. By fall, it was found that active gardeners were eating an average of 1.4 grams more fiber per day than the control group—an increase of about 7% during gardening season. The gardening group also increased their physical activity levels by about 42 minutes per week – more than the control group. Gardeners also had a decrease in in their stress and anxiety levels. Those who started with higher levels of stress and anxiety had the greatest reduction. There were no significant impacts on combined fruit and vegetable intake, Healthy Eating Index, sedentary time, BMI and waist circumference. “Our results suggest that community gardening . . . could be beneficial in changing some key risk factors for cancer and other chronic diseases,” the study concluded.

Keep those thumbs green: Gardening reduces disease risk new study finds

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