Page 9 - Health and Healing Through Nature Article
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Wilderness Access (continued)
Intervention Result/Outcome
Exercise in forest Salivary amylase decreased with forest walking, decreased appetite 47
Nature walks Decreased blood pressure, cortisol, heart rate 48
Increased perception of Increased physical and mental health 49
greenness
Mice and cell-culture studies Microdiversity decreases allergies 50
Healthy vs. Allergic In healthy people, the IL-10 expression was positively correlated with
individuals gammaproteobacterial genus of Acinetobacter abundance
Allergic individuals had lower diversity 51
Farms and high biodiversity Decreased risk of asthma with more biodiversity on farms 52
Vector-born diseases Affect economic development 53
West Nile Virus and bird The more rich the non-passerine bird species, the fewer mosquito and
species richness human infection rates of West Nile Virus 54
Species diversity in Diversity decreased imbalance and disease risk 55
ecosystem
Biodiversity Negatively correlated with malaria transmission in African
countries 56
Biodiversity loss and eco Loss of predators and results in imbalance
disruption Increased vector-born diseases 57
Dilution effect The more biodiversity, the more competition, the less imbalance 58
Health and biodiversity Health depends on biodiversity, including: new medicine discovery,
research, food, infection spread 59
Biodiversity Essential for balance, imbalance creates disease 60
Viewing charismatic macro- Viewing large animals (such as at a zoo or wildlife preserve) has
and megafauna (large see shown improvement in quality of life on self-report 61
and land animals)
Nature and Healing - David Bilstrom, MD 9
