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Ana Toepel, Green Impact, April 2020

Soil Health is Human Health Says UCSF's Dr. Rupa Marya
Image Credit: Tinnakorn Jorruang on iStock
You may have heard that healthy soil is essential to growing food and to the sustainability of our planet-but did you know it is also essential to our health?

The current pandemic has brought health issues front and center, and we are now more than ever focused on how to stay healthy. According to UCSF's Rupa Marya, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, there is a profound connection between soil health and human health-and it's all in the gut. When Dr. Marya started practicing medicine, she would see a lot of inflammatory bowel patients, and she started to see a rise in drug resistance as well, which led her to wonder whether conventional farming using pesticides was impacting what they were seeing in the gut. After she married a regenerative farmer, she became intrigued by the connections between his soil microbiology reports and the reports on her patients' gut microbiomes. It's now clear to her that there is a parallel between what is happening to the Earth and what's happening to our bodies.

"Earth can be looked at as a body, and the Earth's gut is the soil," Marya explains. "Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides have the effect of sterilizing our soils and that is impacting the food we put into our gut. What does it mean to kill the web of life in the soil, the complex microbiology? The more soil complexity and biodiversity, the more efficiently plants can cycle nutrients, making them healthier and more nutrient-dense. And the more biodiverse your gut microbiome is, the more ability you have to counteract inflammation."
Collaborations with UCSF Feature Regenerative Farming as Key to Health

Dr. Marya says we can leverage the biological processes in the soil to support human health and counteract inflammation. Regenerative farming practices rebuild organic matter and living biodiversity in soil, which produces increasingly nutrient-dense food year after year. In a January New York Times Story Dr. Marya expressed that it's not just doctors that impact our health, but also farmers, who hold a key to keeping us healthier-and that key is soil. Farmers are actually critical stewards of our health.

Currently, Dr. Marya is involved in a research project in its initial stages on the topic of "Food as Medicine, Inflammation, and Soil Health as Human Health." The team includes UCSF's Tammy Nicastro, researcher with the Institute for Global Health Sciences; Susan Lynch, Professor of Medicine and a Director of Human Microbiome Research; and Shari Weiser, Professor of Medicine and Internist at UCSF's Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at SF General Hospital. The study attempts to recreate the Shamba Maisha study in Kenya that is employing sustainable farming practices to improve the health of people living with HIV, and will look at how regenerative farming impacts inflammation and mental health in people in the Bay Area who have been oppressed by poverty and homelessness.

Another exciting collaboration of Dr. Marya's is called "Soil Health is Human Health," a coalition of farmers, doctors, nurses, policy workers, scientists, and government agencies with an initiative to move our land management system to one that prioritizes soil health, improves human health, and uplifts farmers in our state. Dr. Marya is one of just eight people appointed by Governor Newsom to his Healthy California for All Commission, and this could open some doors for the initiative. Already the coalition has been invited to submit a proposal to the Governor for a nutrition and health initiative. Dr. Marya would like to see the UC system get behind this initiative to move our state to regenerative farming practices and just this January she addressed the UC Regents about moving away from toxic pesticides and fertilizers. She is also in conversation with the Office of the President about how UC can do more sourcing from farms using these practices.

Here at UCSF, Facilities Services avoids the use of pesticides and herbicides to control weeds on its grounds and in February introduced an innovative new tool for weed control-a Weedtechnics saturated steam machine. Using steam to get rid of weeds is both environmentally-friendly and more efficient than weeding by hand. This new addition is yet another way UCSF aims to keep its landscaping practices chemical-free.
What You Can Do
Dr. Marya suggests the following actions:

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Ana Toepel, Green Impact, April 2020 Image Credit: Tinnakorn Jorruang on iStock You may have heard that healthy soil is essential to growing food and to the sustainability of our planet-but did you know it is also essential to our health?

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see: https://sustainability.ucsf.edu/3.868

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Ana Toepel, Green Impact, April 2020

Soil Health is Human Health Says UCSF's Dr. Rupa Marya
Image Credit: Tinnakorn Jorruang on iStock
You may have heard that healthy soil is essential to growing food and to the sustainability of our planet-but did you know it is also essential to our health?

The current pandemic has brought health issues front and center, and we are now more than ever focused on how to stay healthy. According to UCSF's Rupa Marya, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, there is a profound connection between soil health and human health-and it's all in the gut. When Dr. Marya started practicing medicine, she would see a lot of inflammatory bowel patients, and she started to see a rise in drug resistance as well, which led her to wonder whether conventional farming using pesticides was impacting what they were seeing in the gut. After she married a regenerative farmer, she became intrigued by the connections between his soil microbiology reports and the reports on her patients' gut microbiomes. It's now clear to her that there is a parallel between what is happening to the Earth and what's happening to our bodies.

"Earth can be looked at as a body, and the Earth's gut is the soil," Marya explains. "Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides have the effect of sterilizing our soils and that is impacting the food we put into our gut. What does it mean to kill the web of life in the soil, the complex microbiology? The more soil complexity and biodiversity, the more efficiently plants can cycle nutrients, making them healthier and more nutrient-dense. And the more biodiverse your gut microbiome is, the more ability you have to counteract inflammation."
Collaborations with UCSF Feature Regenerative Farming as Key to Health

Dr. Marya says we can leverage the biological processes in the soil to support human health and counteract inflammation. Regenerative farming practices rebuild organic matter and living biodiversity in soil, which produces increasingly nutrient-dense food year after year. In a January New York Times Story Dr. Marya expressed that it's not just doctors that impact our health, but also farmers, who hold a key to keeping us healthier-and that key is soil. Farmers are actually critical stewards of our health.

Currently, Dr. Marya is involved in a research project in its initial stages on the topic of "Food as Medicine, Inflammation, and Soil Health as Human Health." The team includes UCSF's Tammy Nicastro, researcher with the Institute for Global Health Sciences; Susan Lynch, Professor of Medicine and a Director of Human Microbiome Research; and Shari Weiser, Professor of Medicine and Internist at UCSF's Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at SF General Hospital. The study attempts to recreate the Shamba Maisha study in Kenya that is employing sustainable farming practices to improve the health of people living with HIV, and will look at how regenerative farming impacts inflammation and mental health in people in the Bay Area who have been oppressed by poverty and homelessness.

Another exciting collaboration of Dr. Marya's is called "Soil Health is Human Health," a coalition of farmers, doctors, nurses, policy workers, scientists, and government agencies with an initiative to move our land management system to one that prioritizes soil health, improves human health, and uplifts farmers in our state. Dr. Marya is one of just eight people appointed by Governor Newsom to his Healthy California for All Commission, and this could open some doors for the initiative. Already the coalition has been invited to submit a proposal to the Governor for a nutrition and health initiative. Dr. Marya would like to see the UC system get behind this initiative to move our state to regenerative farming practices and just this January she addressed the UC Regents about moving away from toxic pesticides and fertilizers. She is also in conversation with the Office of the President about how UC can do more sourcing from farms using these practices.

Here at UCSF, Facilities Services avoids the use of pesticides and herbicides to control weeds on its grounds and in February introduced an innovative new tool for weed control-a Weedtechnics saturated steam machine. Using steam to get rid of weeds is both environmentally-friendly and more efficient than weeding by hand. This new addition is yet another way UCSF aims to keep its landscaping practices chemical-free.
What You Can Do
Dr. Marya suggests the following actions:

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Ana Toepel, Green Impact, April 2020 Image Credit: Tinnakorn Jorruang on iStock You may have heard that healthy soil is essential to growing food and to the sustainability of our planet-but did you know it is also essential to our health?

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Overview: Please peruse potential focus areas for CSU OHI, and add comments about whether or not OHI should invest time and resources in these areas.  Add additional topics  that you think have been omitted.  Some example topics and comments have been provided.                               We will summarize inputs and discuss next Monday 12/14.  The goal will be to come up with a prioritized list of topics/activities for further discussions next semester...likely involving ~2 hour facilitated/networking sessions sponsored by OHI and others. 

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Overview: Please peruse potential focus areas for CSU OHI, and add comments about whether or not OHI should invest time and resources in these areas.  Add additional topics  that you think have been omitted.  Some example topics and comments have been provided.                               We will summarize inputs and discuss next Monday 12/14.  The goal will be to come up with a prioritized list of topics/activities for further discussions next semester...likely involving ~2 hour facilitated/networking sessions sponsored by OHI and others. 

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“One Health” is a transdisciplinary concept that focuses on issues at the intersection of Human, Environmental, and Animal Health.                                                       "One Health/One Medicine" is advancing translational science by application of natural animal models to accelerate health advances that benefit humans and animals. 

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“One Health” is a transdisciplinary concept that focuses on issues at the intersection of Human, Environmental, and Animal Health.                                                       "One Health/One Medicine" is advancing translational science by application of natural animal models to accelerate health advances that benefit humans and animals. 

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How to focus or better define this topic that would lead to a productive 2 hour workshop/networking session?

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this is a great topic but would need to distinguish from microbiome network

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This might related to Climate change and one health.  Adding this because two ongoing pilot projects--air quality and dairy cow health/production and uranium contamination on Navajo lands--are in this general category.  It would be helpful to discuss this on 12/14

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Inclusive Health/Health Disparities and One Heath

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Inclusive Health/Health Disparities and One Heath

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what are some specific examples of these were CSU has unique capabilities?

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One HealthDatasets
Comparative Trauma
One Health Stories
COHA/CCSTI activities
Biobanking
Translational medical education
Translational clinical trials