Gardening is good for you, going by tests carried out by the University of Helsinki, which showed "significant" potential health benefits from keeping just a few potted plants inside your home.
"One month of urban indoor gardening boosted the diversity of bacteria on the skin of the subjects and was associated with higher levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines in the blood," said Mika Saarenpää, a doctoral candidate at the university’s Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences.
The tests exposed some people to "a growing medium with high microbial diversity emulating the forest soil" and others to "a microbially poor peat-based medium." The participants who worked with peat were found to have had "no changes in the blood or the skin microbiota."
Saarenpää described the findings as "significant" as they could lead to lifestyle changes that boost or revive immune systems left weak by city life.
"Urbanization has led to a considerable increase in immune-mediated diseases, such as allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases, generating high healthcare costs," Saarenpää said.
Gardening, therefore, could prove "an effortless way to improve health," the university claimed, as it requires little space and does not cost much money.
The team said the gardening in their study took place in normal flower boxes, while the cultivated plants, such as peas, beans, mustards and salads, came from shop shelves.