MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Community gardening can improve health, reduce disease risk factors, says study published in January lancet planet health.
Dr. Jill S. Litt of the University of Colorado Boulder and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial in adults on waiting lists for the Denver Urban Gardens community gardens in Denver and Aurora. Participants were randomly assigned to a group to receive a community garden plot (intervention group, 145 participants) or to remain on a waiting list without gardens (control group, 146 participants). Diet, physical activity, and anthropometric measurements were examined as primary outcomes during the spring (April to her early June, pre-randomization, time point 1 [T1]), autumn (late August to October, time point 2 [T2]), and winter (January to March, post-intervention, time point 3 [T3]).
The investigators compared fiber intake (mean difference between groups of 1.41 g per day for intervention minus controls at T2) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (mean difference between groups, 5.80 min). We observed a significant intervention time effect. /Day). Participants in the intervention group showed a significant reduction in perceived stress and anxiety between T1 and T2 compared to participants in the control group.
“This randomized controlled trial is a comprehensive, multi-component, nature-based social intervention in which community gardening can improve health behaviors and reduce perceived stress and anxiety in a subset of diverse urban populations. strengthens the evidence that,” the authors wrote.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to Connecting Health Innovations.
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