Submitted by universityofturku t3_10e9rw4 in science
How are the oligosaccharides making their way to breast milk? Are people eating more diverse diets in greener urban environments?
Or is it that people with more wealth are more likely to live in greener urban areas?
The article says the results were independent of socioeconomic status, so they apparently controlled for that, but I'm still a bit suspicious too because we already know that wealth literally improves every aspect of a person's life already.
I think I'd have a fair amount of skepticism unless they proved the direct causal relationship, or maybe if they were still able to find the same correlation when looking at poor rural families and wealthy inner city families without many green areas (I feel like this is rare for wealthy people, but it does exist). I feel like controlling for things like diet, exercise, etc would be extremely difficult in that case too.
AllI know is I live in a very socio economic diverse suburb city with lots of greenery. The Pacific Northwest is pretty green everywhere and the suburbs always felt like forest cities.
Let's keep in mind that the study was only testing for something very specific (the diversity of HMOs), not for any direct benefits or general wellness like the press release article speculates. So the question isn't "should we expect rich people to have this good thing" (not actually tested), but rather, "should we expect rich people to be more likely to be exposed to areas with high biodiversity and low human impact", which were the main factors linked to HMO diversity. Which isn't necessarily the case.
If only there was something posted that you could read.
Read? I am a Reddit user, sir. I make judgments on articles based on the title alone!
Forests are pretty cheap
Rural areas too
or is it that they are exposed to less air pollution?
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No lie, I’m pretty sick of this too. Every single research article is “but what about wealth??”.
In the comments below, people keep guessing that maybe it’s because richer people eat better food. Even tho food has NOTHING to do with this topic!!
Like sure, hate the rich all you want, but at this point it’s become an excuse for folks to get out of responsible decision making.
There’s plenty that can be done to improve your life or the life of your child. One example, as implied by this research, is to be out in nature more. Even poor people have access to nature. Stop this ridiculousness folks.
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It would help if the title wasn't clearly misleading bait.
Of course people exposed to more environmental factors would develop immunities to those factors. They intentionally word the title to make it seem like urban sprawls are inherently harmful to humans.
A lot of the oligosaccharides are actually produced by your body.
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All oligosaccharides in mammalian breast milk are produced exclusively in the mammary glands during lactation, and do not enter or arrive from systemic circulation. It’s not something a breastfeeding mother can consume and have it show up in breastmilk.
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