Vascular health: living near trees helps prevent pollution-related damage

Living near green spaces can prevent vascular damage from pollution, a new study has found. What support the trend of “mini-forests”, replanted in urban spaces by a growing number of town halls, or even that of “forest baths”, an ancestral Japanese treatment that is attracting more and more French people.

A link between vascular health, green spaces and air pollution

Researchers at the University of Louisville have shown that living near green space can offset the negative effects of air pollution on blood vessels. Their study, led by Aruni Bhatnagar, professor of medicine, was published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Previous trials had already shown that the proximity of trees or other plants could lower blood pressure and the risk of heart disease. But the link between vascular health, green spaces and air pollution had not been fully explored until now.

Arterial stiffness analysis

To overcome this lack of data, the researchers analyzed the arterial stiffness of adult volunteers with chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia (which put them in the category of people at risk of heart disease, editor’s note).

Result: even taking into account the lifestyle habits declared by the volunteers, such as physical exercise and smoking (70% of the cohort were non-smokers), the researchers found that “the effects of green spaces on hemodynamic function are largely independent of average income, physical activity levels, and tobacco consumption”, explains Daniel Riggs, co-author of the study. He pursues : “These results indicate that living in green spaces may be supportive of vascular health, and that the effects [favorables] greenery may be attributable, in part, to reduced exposure to air pollutants”.

“Therefore, one way to prevent the adverse health effects of air pollution may be to make urban neighborhoods greener”concludes Mr. Bhatnagar.