Wild Your World
Wild Your Environment
Climate change is the biggest threat to human health of our time. Not only are we likely to be affected by increasing incidence of wild fires, floods and hurricanes but the insidious degradation of soil quality thought monocrop agriculture and deforestation severely impacts the quality of our food production.
Declining nutrient density of food crops has the potential to exacerbate micronutrient malnutrition on a global scale, as well as in our own backyard.
Soil is made up of organic material in addition to particles of minerals and rock, liquids, and gases. An important indicator of soil health is soil respiration, which is essentially a measure of carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the soil due to the decomposition of organic matter by microbes within the soil and the respiration of plant roots and fauna.
Research has suggested that the nutrient content of crops has declined over the years, possibly in part due to a number of factors such as the cultivated plant varieties, land and soil management practices, and climate change.
A 2017 review found that elevated CO2 concentrations potentially resulted in a 3-11% decrease in zinc and iron in cereal grains and legumes, specifically. In addition to minerals, elevated eCO2 potentially impacts the protein concentration of various grains, which may significantly affect countries that rely on grain crops as sources of dietary protein
Climate factors can also affect the level and availability of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and iron in the soil.
There is increasing evidence that our connection with nature has an effect on our microbiome.
Recent research suggests that growing up in microbe-rich environments, such as traditional farms, may have protective health effects on children. For example, an individual’s proximity to greenspaces and their associated microbiota may play a role in developing noncommunicable diseases.
Another team found that residents living with higher surrounding biodiversity supported a higher diversity of immunoregulatory gammaproteobacteria.
This branch of research centers around a hypothesis that is based on the idea that humans have co-evolved with microbiota in biodiverse environments, and that this relationship is vital to the evolution and progression of resilient immune systems.
There is one study which estimates that approximately 22-36% of the interperson microbiome variability is associated with environmental factors and only 1.9-9% with genetics. This further supports the view that humans are ‘holobionts’—a host plus trillions of microorganisms working symbiotically to form a functional ecological unit.
Called Microbioscape Research, this field of study examines the environmental microbiome and its relationship with people and nature. It also aims to understand the social implications and functional ecology of these communities, with a focus on their importance for people, place, and nature.
In short your natural environment may well have a direct effect on your intestinal microbial balance.
According to the EPA, Americans, on average, spend up to 90% of their time indoors, where some pollutants may potentially have concentrations two to five times higher than outside.
