Submitted by universityofturku t3_10e9rw4 in science
Reply to comment by Substantial_Space478 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
No offense but what is the reason that having more money in your bank account would have a bigger affect on oligosaccharides than living in a more natural environment? I would think that environment would have a more direct connection to breast milk quality than finances.
First, in many countries people with more money have better access to green spaces. Also, people with more money could be healthier on average for a variety of reasons (e.g. access to healthier food, more leisure time and time to exercise, fewer life-or-death stressors), and healthier people would presumably produce higher quality breast milk.
Socio-economic status is a huge and obvious confounder, so bringing it up makes sense. In this case, however, the full article said they controlled for that and saw similar results.
There's a lot of poor folks in rural areas.
Rural doesn’t necessarily mean quality green spaces.
Idk how you define "quality green space" but in most rural places, it's all around. Might not be in the form of public parks and walking trails, but it's there in farms and lakes and streams, and many of us have animals to care for that get us outside daily, large yards, gardens, etc.
At least in this context, defining quality as ecological healthy with high biodiversity seems like the right choice.
While we are obviously talking averages/in general, I would guess that for every rural community with healthy lakes and streams, there are twice as many with monoculture farms with heavy herbicide and pesticide usage, which might not confer as much benefit if I am understanding correctly (which I might not be). I can’t back up those numbers, but maybe someone has the relevant data.
I would also like to note that I said “better access”, which doesn’t necessarily mean that other people don’t have access. Furthermore, I was simply trying to explain why wealth could be a confounding factor, not necessarily suggesting that there couldn’t be people seeing the same benefit without being wealthy.
I think that the bottom line is that more studies looking at how benefits vary depending on which kind of green space is available would be potentially helpful.
I think it's presumptuous to think that more income equals less stress. More income usually does not fall out of the sky. It usually entails working a more demanding career. It's also true that some people have more money because they are neurotic about finances. I know poor people who do not stress about money and well-off people who are obsessive about finances. You can factor in socioeconomic status just to have another vector of analysis but treating wealth and stress as automatically inverse variables is presumptuous and unscientific.
I didn’t say less stress. I am perfectly aware that is not the case. I said fewer life-or-death stressors, like a person not knowing if they will be able to afford essentials (e.g. food or shelter), as well as the possibility that an unexpected cost or illness might cause their finances (and their well-being) to crumble.
There are lots of kinds/sources of stress, and each person handles stress differently, but not knowing when you can next eat or if you can pay your rent fall into a special category, IMO.
income is directly correlated with health, meaning those with higher incomes are healthier than those with lower incomes
That's a statistical correlation not a mechanism of causation. You actually need to draw a picture how finances impact breast milk quality.
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