Community gardening helps reduce cancer, boost mental health, study shows

If you want to reduce your risk of chronic diseases, join your neighbors in community gardening. This is the surprising conclusion of a study conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder and funded by the American Cancer Society.

The first-ever, randomized, controlled trial of community gardening was published in the online journal Lancet Planetary Health under the title “Effects of a community gardening intervention on diet, physical activity, and anthropometry outcomes in the US.”

The study “provides concrete evidence that community gardening could play an important role in preventing cancer, chronic diseases and mental health disorders,” said senior author Jill Litt, a professor in the department of environmental studies.

Litt spent much of her career seeking to identify affordable, scalable and sustainable ways to reduce disease risk, especially among low-income communities.

“No matter where you go, people say there’s something about gardening that makes them feel better,” she said.

But solid science on its benefits is hard to come by. Without evidence, it is hard to get support for new programs, Litt said. Some small observational studies have found that people who garden tend to eat more fruits and vegetables and have a healthier weight. But it has been unclear whether healthier people just tend to garden or that gardening influences health. Tending a garden in your backyard or even on a balcony also provides health benefits.

How did she conduct her study?

Litt recruited 291 non-gardening adults with an average age of 41 from the Denver area. More than half came from low-income households.

After the last spring frost, half were assigned to the community gardening group and half to a control group that was asked to wait one year to start gardening. The gardening group received a free community garden plot, some seeds and seedlings and an introductory gardening course through the nonprofit Denver Urban Gardens program. Both groups took periodic surveys about their nutritional intake and mental health, underwent body measurements and wore activity monitors.

By fall, those in the gardening group were eating, on average, 1.4 grams more fiber per day than the control group – an increase of about 7%. The authors said fiber exerts a profound effect on inflammatory and immune responses, influencing how we metabolize food, how healthy our gut microbiome and how susceptible we are to diabetes and certain cancers.

While doctors recommend 25 to 38 grams of fiber per day, the average adult consumes fewer than 16 grams.

“An increase of one gram of fiber can have large, positive effects on health,” said co-author James Hebert, director of the University of South Carolina’s cancer prevention and control program.

The gardening group also increased their physical activity levels by about 42 minutes per week. Public health agencies recommend at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week, a recommendation only a quarter of the US population meets. With just two to three visits to the community garden weekly, participants met 28% of that requirement.

Study participants also saw their stress and anxiety levels decrease, with those who came into the study most stressed and anxious seeing the greatest reduction in mental-health issues.

The study results did not surprise Linda Appel Lipsius, executive director of Denver Urban Gardens (DUG), a 43-year-old nonprofit that helps about 18,000 people each year grow their own food in community garden plots.“It’s transformational, even life-saving, for so many people,” she said.

Many DUG participants live in areas where access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables is otherwise extremely limited. Some are low-income immigrants now living in apartments; having a garden plot allows them to grow food from their home country and pass on traditional recipes to their family and neighbors. Social connection is also significant.

“Even if you come to the garden looking to grow your food on your own in a quiet place, you start to look at your neighbor’s plot and share techniques and recipes, and over time, relationships bloom,” Litt said, adding that while gardening alone is good for you, gardening in the community may have additional benefits. “It’s not just about the fruits and vegetables. It’s also about being in a natural space outdoors together with others.”

Litt said she hopes the findings will encourage health professionals, policy-makers and land planners to look to community gardens and other spaces that encourage people to come together in nature, as a vital part of the public health system.

The evidence is clear that “gardening works,” Litt said.