Forest soil to boost the immune system of city children
An experiment in Finnish daycare centres points to positive effects of natural forest flooring. However, the significance of the results is probably limited.
Children in urban daycare centres may have more diverse microbiomes and more favourable immune values if the outdoor areas are lined with forest soil. This is the preliminary conclusion of a working group led by Aki Sinkkonen from the University of Helsinki following a trial at four Finnish daycare centres with a total of 36 children. As the team reports in "Science Advances", the team compared the amounts of anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory messenger substances and regulatory immune cells in the blood as well as the diversity of the children's skin and intestinal bacteria with control groups before and after the 28-day trial.
For the experiment, the team transferred natural forest soil including moss and shrubs to previously unplanted outdoor areas of daycare centres in the Finnish cities of Lahti and Tampere. During the study, the children spent an average of around one and a half hours on and with the enhanced areas. According to the team, diversity increased in three out of four bacterial classes studied compared to children in a control group. They had approached the values of children from nature-orientated daycare centres, which served as a second comparison group in the study.
The team saw a similar effect in the immune parameters. However, the fluctuation range of the measured values is very high and the number of children analysed is small. For this reason, and because the values themselves only provide indirect information about the immune status, it is still completely unclear whether the result has any practical significance. The condition of the forest floor after the experiment is not known.
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