Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases

Symptoms and General Pathology

All Conditions

Rare Diseases

Obesity

Body Weight

Weight Gain

Chronic Disease

Disease Attributes

Body Weight Changes

Chronic Graft Versus Host Disease

Participants randomized to the Community Garden Intervention Group will receive the garden intervention. Participants will be assigned a plot for one season and will receive a standard package of services and amenities to support participation in the community garden, including seeds and transplants, tools, new garden classes and access to master community gardeners in Denver.

The non-gardening group will remain on the DUG wait lists and will not receive the garden intervention.

The investigators will recruit 30 prospective gardeners who have not been gardening for the past two years and who are listed on Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) wait lists. DUG randomly assigns people on each garden wait list to available plots, using a lottery. This creates a natural randomized experiment. Participants randomized to the garden intervention will receive a standardized garden resource package, which includes the following:

1. A garden plot in a Denver Urban Garden
2. Seeds and plant starts
3. Introductory gardening workshop
4. Social events including garden-specific events and garden mentoring.

The non-gardening group will remain on the DUG wait lists and will not receive these resources.

Duration of the intervention is 1 year.

Community Garden Intervention

Jill S Litt, PhD

An interdisciplinary team with extensive garden study experience conducted a pilot randomized controlled clinical trial to see whether gardening reduced risk factors for diseases like cancer and heart disease. The pilot trial will provide preliminary data on associations between human microbiome, diet, physical activity, and social interactions and the outcomes of weight status and key inflammatory biomarkers.

The pilot study will lead to development of a future, large randomized controlled clinical trial, by fulfilling the following aims:

Pilot Aim 1: Demonstrate feasibility of recruitment and ability to perform study procedures.

Pilot Aim 2: Demonstrate the ability to measure accurately chronic disease risk factors such as diet, physical activity, weight gain, microbiome characteristics and inflammatory biomarkers.

Pilot Aim 3: Provide preliminary results on the efficacy of gardens as a preventive intervention, and estimates for a detailed power analysis for the proposed subsequent larger trial.

Aim 3a: Demonstrate that compared to non-gardeners, gardeners have 1) greater intake of fruits and vegetables; 2) better Healthy Eating Index (HEI); 3) lower Diet Inflammatory Index (DII); 4) reduced sedentary time and increased moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA); and reduced age-associated weight gain.

Aim 3b: For gardeners and non-gardeners, sample garden soil, gut, skin, and oral microbiome at six time points from April through September to characterize and compare bacterial load, pathogenic taxa, taxonomic diversity, relative dominance, indicator taxa, and metabolomic results.

Aim 3c: Demonstrate that gardening reduces inflammatory biomarkers linked to heart disease and cancer, including CRP, IL1b, IL4, IL6, IL10, and TNFa, and that the effect of gardening is mediated by diet, weight gain, physical activity and characteristics of the microbiome.

Denver Garden Environment and Microbiome Study Disease

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Gardening as an Intervention to Reduce Risk of Cancer and Heart

6 24-hour diet recalls will be collected at random

Accelerometers will be adhered to thigh and collect data for 7 days

Microbiome data will be collected six time points using 1 gut, 2 skin, and 1 oral samples

Objective measurements of weight will be collected

Objective measurement of waist circumference

Microbiome data will be derived from 1 gut, 2 skin, and 1 oral samples

Samples include hs-CRP, TNF-alpha, IL1b, IL4, IL6, IL10

Including LDL, HDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides

University of Colorado, Boulder

Associate Professor, Environmental Studies

Participants randomized to the Community Garden Intervention Group will receive the garden intervention. Participants will be assigned a plot for one season and will receive a standard package of services and amenities to support participation in the community garden.

Participants randomized to the Wait List Control Group will remain on community gardening waiting lists and will not receive the garden intervention.

The investigators will recruit prospective adult gardeners who have not been gardening for the past two years and who are listed on Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) wait lists. Individuals randomized to the garden intervention will receive a standardized garden resource package, which includes the following:

1. A garden plot in a Denver Urban Garden
2. Seeds and plant starts
3. Introductory gardening workshop
4. Social events including garden-specific events and garden mentoring.

The Wait List Control group will remain on the community gardening wait lists and will not receive these resources.

Duration of the intervention is 1 year.

The investigators previous studies show that community gardening is associated with reduction of key health behaviors for cancer prevention in diverse populations. Community gardeners eat more fruits and vegetables per day, are more physically active, and are more likely to avoid age-associated increase in body mass index (BMI). The effect is partially explained by the finding that gardeners are more socially involved, and feel more social support than non-gardeners.

The investigators propose a randomized controlled trial to determine whether community gardening improves cancer-preventive behaviors among a multi-ethnic, low-income adult population and elucidate the pathways that shape cancer-preventive behaviors. A randomized controlled trial is needed to demonstrate that the observed behavioral differences are due to the effect of gardening as an intervention rather than self-selection by gardeners.

Community Activation for Prevention (CAPs): A Study of Community Gardening

Community Activation for Prevention (CAPs): A Randomized Controlled Trial of Community Gardening

The investigators will store all Individual Participant Data in a HIPPA compliant database separate from the study database. All analysis will be conducted on an analytic data set, stripped of indirect and direct identifiers.

Study title	NCT ID	Conditions	Interventions	Eligibility	Organization
Denver Garden Environment and Microbiome Study Disease	NCT03089151	Diet Modificati... Physical Activi... Weight Gain Chronic Disease Lifestyle, Sede... Health Behavior	Community Garde...	18 Years -	University of Colorado, Boulder
Community Activation for Prevention (CAPs): A Study of Community Gardening	NCT03089177	Cancer Obesity Lifestyle, Sede... Physical Activi... Health Behavior Chronic Disease Diet Modificati...	Community Garde...	18 Years -	University of Colorado, Boulder
Community Activation for Prevention (CAPs): A Study of Community Gardening	NCT03089177	Cancer Obesity Lifestyle, Sede... Physical Activi... Health Behavior Chronic Disease Diet Modificati...	Community Garde...	18 Years -	University of Colorado, Boulder

Spots Global Cancer Trial Database for community garden intervention