The report written by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016 presents an extensive assessment to show how the improvement of the environment can promote health and well-being. The awareness of how many diseases could be avoided by focusing on environmental risk factors would give a boost to global efforts to promote preventive health. The results obtained by the quantitative analysis on the burden of diseases attributable to the environment, confirm that 24% of global deaths and 26% of deaths among children under 5 years are caused by modifiable environmental risk factors. For this reason, this report strongly supports the idea that the environment is a solid platform for good public, community and individual health. Furthermore, in 2021, WHO with the United Nations developed a Compendium, which provides strategies and key guidance for acting on environmental conditions as a key contributor to reducing many communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). In the following article we examined the environment-related diseases according to WHO paperwork.

Key Words: Nature Therapy, environment, healthcare professionals SUMMARY Objective: this work aims to evaluate the feasibility of a “nature therapy” intervention conducted on healthcare professionals. Methods: a blood sample and other physiological parameters were taken, and a perceived mood profile survey was administered, to a sample of 20 healthcare professionals working in a rehabilitation unit of a hospital in Northern Italy before and after a 30-minute walk in the green area represented by the park of the same facility. Results: the participants’ median serum cortisol was reduced by 1.68 ug/dL following the study interven- tion. Compared to the perceived mood profile following the intervention, tension, worn out and anger were reduced. Discussion: the results obtained with this small number of subjects demonstrate the feasibility of a nature therapy intervention in healthcare workers. Assessments of changes in serum cortisol and the subjects’ perceived mood profile before and after the intervention suggest a possible reduction in stress associated with exposure to nature. Conclusion: exposure to nature, even for a short time, can be a remedy for stress and its associated problems. Corresponding Author: fgiacchero@aslal.it

Asbestos research, identification, and quantification have been performed over the years, and the relationship between fiber inhalation and lung disease development is well defined. The same cannot be said for the gastroenteric system: the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) believes that colorectal cancer (CRC) could be associated with asbestos exposure, but research has not demonstrated a casual nexus between exposure and CRC, despite highlighting an association tendency. The combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) is the most applied technique in asbestos fiber identification in tissues and intestinal mucosa. In this study, SEM/EDS was applied to evaluate the presence of asbestos fibers and bodies (ABs) inside the tissue of eleven patients affected by CRC who had undergone environmental exposure due to living in an asbestos-polluted area where an Eternit plant had been active in the past. This technique was coupled with optical microscopy (OM) to verify whether the latter could be applied to evaluate the presence of these mineral phases, with the goal of understanding its suitability for identifying fibers and ABs in colon tissues. In addition to verifying the presence of fibers, this study allowed us to identify the deposition site of said fibers within the sample and possibly detect associated tissue reactions using OM, over a shorter time and at lower costs. Despite being a preliminary and descriptive work, the obtained results allowed us to propose a method involving first-sample OM observation to identify regulated (fibers with a length ≥ 5 μm, a thickness ≤ 3 μm, and a length/thickness ratio > 3) asbestos phases and ABs in the extra-respiratory system. In fact, OM and SEM/EDS provided similar information: no asbestiform morphology or ABs were found, but phyllosilicates and other inorganic materials were identified. This research needs to be continued using higher-resolution techniques to definitively rule out the presence of these fibers inside tissues whilst also increasing the number of patients involved.