According to a new study, gardening helps to reduce the risk of cancer among patients. This study investigated the benefits of gardening on people’s health by considering several aspects of health and one of these was participation in community gardening.
Community gardening is one of the popular activities people opt for for fun. But do you know that this can also help you to live longer and enjoy a healthy life? Yes, this is quite possible as there are many known benefits of community gardening. This reduces your risk of developing certain health conditions as well as promotes better mental health, said a renowned physician from Healthwire while addressing the benefits of gardening.
Benefits of Community Gardening
There have been several studies on the benefits of community gardening. There has been a recent study done by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) who advocated this activity due to its enormous health benefits. This study was conducted in continuation with previous studies. Previous studies were observational in nature and have proven many benefits of gardening during the first randomized controlled trial.
This recent study was published in The Lancet Planetary Health in which 291 adults participated. These individuals previously never participated in activities like gardening. These individuals were generally above 41 years of age and among these 34% were Hispanic. These participants were further distributed into males and females. Out of all these, there were 18% of male participants who were coming from low-income houses.
During the experiment, there were three hardening waves each consisting of one year. For experiment purposes, half of the study participants performed gardening while half of them served as the control group. Study participants received an introductory course and were allocated land and other resources for pursuing the gardening activity. Study participants performed gardening for 90 minutes a week and visited hardening twice a week. Talking about this, Dr. Litt, lead author of the study said, “We found that being new to gardening was not a barrier to being successful at gardening, as our study only included new gardeners”.
Gardening and Healthy Behaviors
During this study, research focuses on the assessment of the health status of individuals before, during, and after the study. All the study participants filled out the survey forms that included questions regarding their diet, stress, anxiety, etc for 7 days. The results of the study indicated that gardening even has an impact on the dietary habits of the participants as they tend to consume slightly higher amounts of fiber in their diet. Further, the study participants also had an elevated physical activity level.
The results of the study make us believe that community gardening can help people to overcome several factors that are linked to the onset and prevention of cancer. Dr. Litt, lead author of the study says that “a holistic intervention such as community gardening can affect multiple outcomes — fiber, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity — and psychosocial health — stress and anxiety — in an acceptable and affordable way, for people of different social, economic, and demographic backgrounds.”
Dr. Crane, professor of oncology said, “The nature of gardening, usually outdoors, involves physical activity, a focus on something outside oneself — hence can also be a mindful activity — may be done in community, as in this study, which can serve as an additional social support.”
Bottom Line!
Cancer is a deadly illness and can be of several types based on the organ being affected. When it comes to the prevention of cancer, a lot of things can play a role. From our dietary choices to our lifestyle, all of this can have an impact on determining your risk for cancer. Recently a new study was published in this regard that studied the impact of gardening on the onset of cancer.
The study was performed on almost 300 individuals who participated in community gardening. The scientist then studies the impact of gardening on aspects of human health. The results of the study prove several benefits of gardening including its role in the prevention of cancer. So, if you are looking for any leisure activity that can also bring some health benefits, community gardening can be your go-to option here.
