Vescape-Eelocity t1_j4qetrs wrote on January 17, 2023 at 3:25 PM

Reply to comment by jtaustin64 in Living in a greener residential area increases the diversity of oligosaccharides in breastmilk. This in turn may affect the child’s health, as the oligosaccharides in breastmilk can protect the infant from harmful microbes and reduce the risk of developing allergies and diseases. by universityofturku

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.

mydogisacloud t1_j4qpfz8 wrote on January 17, 2023 at 4:34 PM

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.

Bulzeeb t1_j4ssxiv wrote on January 18, 2023 at 12:30 AM

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.