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Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert

Evolutionary psychology theories propose that contact with green, natural environments may benefit physical health, but little comparable evidence exists for brown, natural environments, such as the desert. In this study, we examined the association between “brownness” and “greenness” with fasting g...

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Autores principales: Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A., Browning, Matthew H. E. M., Neophytou, Andreas M., Bratman, Gregory N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33435223
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020520
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author Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A.
Browning, Matthew H. E. M.
Neophytou, Andreas M.
Bratman, Gregory N.
author_facet Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A.
Browning, Matthew H. E. M.
Neophytou, Andreas M.
Bratman, Gregory N.
author_sort Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A.
collection PubMed
description Evolutionary psychology theories propose that contact with green, natural environments may benefit physical health, but little comparable evidence exists for brown, natural environments, such as the desert. In this study, we examined the association between “brownness” and “greenness” with fasting glucose among young residents of El Paso, Texas. We defined brownness as the surface not covered by vegetation or impervious land within Euclidian buffers around participants’ homes. Fasting glucose along with demographic and behavioral data were obtained from the Nurse Engagement and Wellness Study (n = 517). We found that residential proximity to brownness was not associated with fasting glucose when modeled independently. In contrast, we found that residential greenness was associated with decreased levels of fasting glucose, despite the relatively low levels of greenness within the predominantly desert environment of El Paso. A difference between the top and bottom greenness exposure quartiles within a 250 m buffer was associated with a 3.5 mg/dL decrease in fasting glucose levels (95% confidence interval: −6.2, −0.8). Our results suggest that within the understudied context of the desert, green vegetation may be health promoting to a degree that is similar to other, non-desert locations in the world that have higher baselines levels of green.
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spelling pubmed-78268832021-01-25 Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A. Browning, Matthew H. E. M. Neophytou, Andreas M. Bratman, Gregory N. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Evolutionary psychology theories propose that contact with green, natural environments may benefit physical health, but little comparable evidence exists for brown, natural environments, such as the desert. In this study, we examined the association between “brownness” and “greenness” with fasting glucose among young residents of El Paso, Texas. We defined brownness as the surface not covered by vegetation or impervious land within Euclidian buffers around participants’ homes. Fasting glucose along with demographic and behavioral data were obtained from the Nurse Engagement and Wellness Study (n = 517). We found that residential proximity to brownness was not associated with fasting glucose when modeled independently. In contrast, we found that residential greenness was associated with decreased levels of fasting glucose, despite the relatively low levels of greenness within the predominantly desert environment of El Paso. A difference between the top and bottom greenness exposure quartiles within a 250 m buffer was associated with a 3.5 mg/dL decrease in fasting glucose levels (95% confidence interval: −6.2, −0.8). Our results suggest that within the understudied context of the desert, green vegetation may be health promoting to a degree that is similar to other, non-desert locations in the world that have higher baselines levels of green. MDPI 2021-01-10 2021-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7826883/ /pubmed/33435223 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020520 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Olvera-Alvarez, Hector A.
Browning, Matthew H. E. M.
Neophytou, Andreas M.
Bratman, Gregory N.
Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title_full Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title_fullStr Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title_full_unstemmed Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title_short Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert
title_sort associations of residential brownness and greenness with fasting glucose in young healthy adults living in the desert
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33435223
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020520
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