Dementia incidence for over 65s has fallen drastically in UK men, a drop of 41 per cent. But the improvement has been much smaller among women: only a 2.5 per cent. This is according to an analysis of more than 10,000 over-65s in the UK spanning the past 20 years. The study found that, overall, a person’s risk of getting dementia by any particular age is a fifth lower than it was 20 years ago (Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11398).

Understanding what’s behind this drop could help lower dementia rates further. Lifestyle factors like better diets, improved blood pressure control and more education may all be involved.

The much steeper decline in men could be because older men used to have unhealthier lifestyles than women, so they had more room for improvement, says team member Fiona Matthews of Newcastle University, UK. “We have gone from smoking being something that nearly every man did to how it is considered now,” she says. (Report on the New Scientist, April 2016).

I rather envy men living in Britain. The much-scorned EU has significantly tougher rules on the purity of food, water and on protecting the environment in general than does the United States. To illustrate, micro style: today we learn that plain, ornery oats (as in porridge) are grown in the US using chemicals that are implicated in cancer. My wife and I eat a lot of oats as part of a carbohydrate-controlled diet. Who, may I ask, can we trust? For sure, by the way, the TTIP “trade treaty” is designed to loosen the rules about food purity to accommodate American suppliers. Be careful, Brexiters, what you hope for!