Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark; Section for Data, Biostatistics and Pharmacoepidemiology, Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Bispebjerg Frederiksberg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Dec 1;850:157853. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157853. Epub 2022 Aug 5.
The prevalence of inflammatory diseases is increasing in populations throughout the industrialized world. An increasing proportion of human populations grow up and live in urban areas, probably with reduced exposure to biodiversity, including diverse soil biotas. Decreased exposure to microorganisms from natural environments, in particular in early childhood, has been hypothesized to hamper development of the human immune system and lead to increasing risks of inflammatory diseases, such as asthma. We investigated 40,249 Danish individuals born 1995-2015. Percentage greenspace was assessed in a 2 km buffer around home addresses of individuals. The Danish Biodiversity Map, charting occurrence density of red-listed animals, plants and macrofungi, was used as a proxy for multi-taxon biodiversity. For asthma defined broadly, we found no evidence of decreasing risk of developing asthma with higher levels of biodiversity, while greenspace exposure was associated with higher risk of asthma. In contrast, exposure to total and biodiverse greenspace was associated with reduced risk of developing severe asthma. Exposure to farmland, which in Denmark is heavily industrialized cropland, also showed association with elevated risk of developing asthma, even at relatively low agricultural landcover. In the subset of children growing up in highly urbanized settings, we found high exposures to urban greenspace to be associated with reduced risk of developing asthma. Our results lend limited support to the hypothesis that childhood exposure to biodiverse environments reduces the risk of acquiring inflammatory diseases later in life. However, access to urban greenspace, such as parks, which typically harbour low levels of biodiversity, seems to reduce asthma risk, potentially through exposure to common soil microbiota. Our results suggest that effects of biodiversity exposure on human health is set by a balance between ecosystem services and disservices and that biodiversity conservation is best motivated with other arguments than reduction of risks from inflammatory diseases.
在工业化世界的各个人群中，炎症性疾病的患病率正在增加。越来越多的人口在城市中成长和生活，他们接触生物多样性的机会可能减少，包括各种土壤生物群。人们推测，人类从自然环境中接触微生物的机会减少，特别是在儿童早期，会阻碍人类免疫系统的发育，并增加炎症性疾病（如哮喘）的风险。我们调查了 1995 年至 2015 年期间出生的 40249 名丹麦人。个体家庭住址周围 2 公里缓冲区的绿地比例得到了评估。丹麦生物多样性地图记录了红色名录上的动物、植物和大型真菌的出现密度，被用作多分类生物多样性的代理。对于广义的哮喘，我们没有发现生物多样性水平越高，患哮喘的风险就越低的证据，而绿地暴露与哮喘风险增加有关。相比之下，暴露于总绿地和生物多样性绿地与降低严重哮喘的发病风险相关。在丹麦，农田是高度工业化的耕地，暴露于农田与哮喘发病风险升高有关，即使农业土地覆盖相对较低也是如此。在成长于高度城市化环境的儿童亚组中，我们发现，高度暴露于城市绿地与患哮喘的风险降低有关。我们的结果有限地支持了这样一种假设，即儿童时期接触生物多样性环境可降低日后患炎症性疾病的风险。然而，接触城市绿地（如公园）似乎可以降低哮喘风险，这可能是通过接触常见的土壤微生物群实现的，而城市绿地的生物多样性通常较低。我们的研究结果表明，生物多样性暴露对人类健康的影响取决于生态系统服务和危害之间的平衡，而生物多样性保护的最佳动机是基于其他论据，而不是降低炎症性疾病的风险。
