Those in the gardening group were provided a free community garden plot, some seeds and seedlings, and an introductory gardening course to get started in the springtime.
To gather data, both groups completed periodic surveys about their diet and mental health, as well as wearing activity monitors and being measured.
What did the study find?
By the autumn, those in the gardening group were eating, on average, 1.4 grams more fibre per day than the control group – seeing an increase of about seven percent.
The authors noted that fibre improves inflammatory and immune responses, including how we metabolise food to how healthy our gut microbiome is to how susceptible we are to diabetes and certain cancers.
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