Contact with Nature Helps to Prevent Allergies and Improves Immunity

How does urbanization and detachment from nature affect our health?

We interviewed professor Ilkka Hanski about the connection between the loss in biodiversity and increase of illnesses.

According to Hanski, allergies and chronic inflammatory disorders are increasing in urban areas and one of the reasons for this is decreased exposure to natural microbes.

Reduced contact with nature can be harmful to our health

Nature’s biodiversity is disappearing rapidly especially in those areas where population density is high and the majority of people are living in cities. This global change can also influence another universal trend: increase of allergies, asthma and inflammatory disorders.

Reduced contact with natural environments can have an adverse effect on the microbiota and immunity in our bodies.

“Allergies will probably increase especially in developing countries where, till now, they have not been common. We also need to realize that allergies are just the tip of the iceberg: many other chronic inflammatory disorders such as autoimmune disorders, type 1 diabetes, some cancers and other diseases are becoming more common just like allergies and asthma”, Hanski assesses global development.

Expert advises us to spend more time in nature

According to the results of a Finnish research group, the quality of living environment affects atopic sensitization that can foretell allergies. Atopic adolescents have lived more often than healthy persons in environments with little biodiversity.

Therefore it is possible to improve immunity by spending more time in nature. “It is extremely important to let little children play outdoors in places where there is dirt and plants. The immunity of toddlers does not develop favourably without contact with environmental microbiota”, professor counsels.

Read more about the subject: Hanski et al. (2012). Environmental biodiversity, human microbiota, and allergy are interrelated