Regulation of the immune system by biodiversity from the natural environment: An ecosystem service essential to health
Regulation of the immune system by biodiversity from the natural environment: An ecosystem service essential to health
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1313731110
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发表时间：
2013-11-12
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Rook, Graham A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rook, Graham A.
流行病学研究表明，生活在接近自然环境的地方与长期的健康益处有关，包括降低死亡率，减少心血管疾病和减少精神问题。这通常归因于心理机制，由锻炼，社会交往和阳光促进。与城市环境相比，接触绿色空间确实会引发快速的心理、生理和内分泌影响。然而，几乎没有证据表明这些快速的短暂影响会带来长期的健康益处，甚至没有证据表明它们是自然环境的一种特殊属性。与此同时，高收入国家日益增多的疾病与免疫调节功能低下和炎症反应调节不良有关，表现为C反应蛋白和促炎细胞因子的慢性升高。这种免疫调节的失败部分归因于缺乏对来自人类进化史的生物体（“老朋友”）的暴露，这些生物体需要被耐受，因此在驱动免疫调节机制中进化了角色。一些“老朋友”（如蠕虫和出生时感染的疾病，这些疾病建立了携带者状态）几乎从城市环境中消失。这增加了我们对来自母亲、其他人、动物和环境的老朋友的依赖。这表明，从环境中的微生物输入驱动免疫调节的需求是绿色空间的有益效果的主要组成部分，和一个被忽视的生态系统服务，是必不可少的，我们的福祉。这一见解将使绿色空间的设计能够优化健康效益，并将为保护生态系统生物多样性提供卫生系统的动力。
Epidemiological studies suggest that living close to the natural environment is associated with long-term health benefits including reduced death rates, reduced cardiovascular disease, and reduced psychiatric problems. This is often attributed to psychological mechanisms, boosted by exercise, social interactions, and sunlight. Compared with urban environments, exposure to green spaces does indeed trigger rapid psychological, physiological, and endocrinological effects. However, there is little evidence that these rapid transient effects cause long-term health benefits or even that they are a specific property of natural environments. Meanwhile, the illnesses that are increasing in high-income countries are associated with failing immunoregulation and poorly regulated inflammatory responses, manifested as chronically raised C-reactive protein and proinflammatory cytokines. This failure of immunoregulation is partly attributable to a lack of exposure to organisms ("Old Friends") from mankind's evolutionary past that needed to be tolerated and therefore evolved roles in driving immunoregulatory mechanisms. Some Old Friends (such as helminths and infections picked up at birth that established carrier states) are almost eliminated from the urban environment. This increases our dependence on Old Friends derived from our mothers, other people, animals, and the environment. It is suggested that the requirement for microbial input from the environment to drive immunoregulation is a major component of the beneficial effect of green space, and a neglected ecosystem service that is essential for our well-being. This insight will allow green spaces to be designed to optimize health benefits and will provide impetus from health systems for the preservation of ecosystem biodiversity.