Section:GDN 1N PaGe:4 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 18:37 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Saturday 3 August 2019
News
Daniel Boff ey Brussels
Richard PartingtonBoris Johnson’s government has been
left isolated in attempts to champion
George Osborne as a compromise can-
didate for leading the International
Monetary Fund, amid EU wrangling
over who should be nominated.
The Treasury had been keen to
manoeuvre the former chancellor into
the running but ended up abstaining
when a decision on an agreed candi-
date was put to a vote by EU fi nance
ministers. It is understood that the
keenly contested day of votes yes-
terday was opposed by the British
government on the grounds that it
was unnecessary to rush the process
before a September deadline.
After a day of email polling by the
capitals, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the
former chair of the Eurogroup of EU
fi nance ministers, and one-time Dutch
fi nance minister, ended up vying with12% lower likelihood of developing
dementia in later life , compared with
those who saw only one or two friends
every few months. Seeing relatives, on
the other hand, did not show the same
benefi cial association.
The authors suggest that practi sing
using the brain for memory and lan-
guage during social contact can build
so-called cognitive reserve.
Tara Spires-Jones , a professor of
neurodegeneration at the University
of Edinburgh who was not involved
in the work, explained : “Learning new
things builds connections between
brain cells, and so does social contact.
The biology underlying this study is
that the people who are socially active
keep their brains better connected. If
you have a better connected network
in your brain, it can resist pathology
for longer.”
Clive Ballard , a professor of age-
related disorders at the University of
Exeter, who was also not involved in
the work, said : “ There are plenty of
other studies that have found that
social isolation is a risk factor.
“The strength of this work is the
large population studied, and that the
assessment of social contact was done
so long before the cognitive assess-
ment bit. It makes the direction of
causality much stronger.”
The authors note that the data does
not include detail on the quality of
social contact, and that dementia cases
may have been missed if participants
did not present to their GP.
There may also be overlappingfactors at play : “It is known that
depression is a signifi cant risk factor,
and our work has shown that hearing
loss is [also] a signifi cant risk factor.
Both of those might lead to social
isolation. It’s likely to be a cluster of
things which are not totally independ-
ent,” said Ballard.
Similar benefi ts were seen for those
who saw friends when they were aged
50 and 70, although the association
was not strong enough to be statisti-
cally signifi cant.
“This is due to the statistical uncer-
tainty involved in the study,” said Dr
Andrew Sommerlad of University
College London, the lead author of
the paper.
“There’s no conceivable reason why
it’d be important at 60 and not other
age points.”
The work contributes to growing
evidence that social activities could
protect people from dementia in the
long run, in addition to treating hear-
ing loss, maintaining a healthy lifestyle
and moving more.
Ballard said: “We now think that at
least 35% of the risk for dementia is
explainable by medical and lifestyle
factors, which are potentially revers-
ible. In the last 10 years there has been
a slight reduction within each age
band [of people] developing dementia
because we’re beginning to pay more
attention to those prevention factors .”
Sommerlad said: “The results of this
study add another potential route by
which people can take steps within
their life to improve their brain health
and reduce their risk of dementia.
“We need to be conscious that we’re
in a society in which social isolation
and loneliness is becoming more com-
mon. We hope that at a community
level and policy level work will be done
to make it easier for older people to
stay connected.”the Bulgarian World Bank chief exec-
utive, Kristalina Georgieva, for the
nomination.
At the start of the day, the capitals
had a choice of fi ve on the shortlist but
Nadia Calviño, the Spanish economy
minister, Olli Rehn, the Finnish central
bank governor, and Mário Centeno,
the Portuguese chairman of eurozone
fi nance ministers, all pulled out.
Dijsselbloem, who has faced oppo-
sition from Spain, Italy and Greece
over his 2017 remarks that the crisis-hit
states had wasted money on “alco-
hol and women”, had the support of
Germany. France was putting its dip-
lomatic weight behind Georgieva to
replace Christine Lagarde, despite her
candidacy requiring the IMF to changeits eligibility criteria. She is already 65
and the IMF rules state that its manag-
ing director must take the post before
their 65th birthday.
The Treasury was left on the side-
lines after plans for the current editor
of the Evening Standard to emerge as a
way forward were apparently dashed.
The EU nomination is crucial as the
convention is that a European national
leads the IMF while an American heads
the World Bank. The decision reached
EU leaders as the day of voting went on
with political allegiances increasingly
playing a role. The initial division had
been between northern and southern
eurozone countries.
Dijsselbloem, a Dutch socialist,
appeared to have won the support of
Spain’s centre-left government, led by
Pedro Sánchez , while Italy off ered its
backing to Georgieva.
Earlier in the day, Mark Carney,
the Bank of England governor, had
appeared to off er himself for the role
after being asked about his intentions
on leaving his current job. “I wouldn’t
mind doing something when I leave
... It is a time of consequence for the
global economy, ” he told BBC Radio
4’s Today programme.
But Carney, a Canadian with both an
Irish and British passport, is not seen
as European enough by many capitals.
A UK spokesman said: “The UK is
committed to an open, merit-based
and transparent process for select-
ing the next IMF managing director.
We are engaging fully in the process
agreed by the board. ”Johnson’s
candidate
for head of
IMF is left
on sidelines
Active social life
can lower risk of
dementia – study
Continued from page 1
Grace Dent
My scrappy ugly garden plot smacks
of personal failure Page 5
Where doves fl y
Can the turtle dove be saved? Page 29Nana Kwame-Brenyah
A tough childhood turned him into
a writer. Now his debut collection is
being feted Page 20
The joke factory
Secrets of the writers’ room Page 32Yotam Ottolenghi
Rediscovering the joys of cooking with
mouth-puckering fresh berries Page 3
Felicity Cloake
A perfect no-churn ice-cream Page 1 8Emissions impossible
John Vidal road tests the options for
lessening our carbon footprint Page 2Sex, drugs and social media
Is Euphoria the most shocking teen
show ever? Page 8Gaby Hinsliff
The falling birthrate is not about
economics or climate Page 1Fantasy house hunt
Looking for a home in a gatehouse?
Page 4 7More noble than war
How disputes, defence and deals
defi ne football in Palestine
Pages 14Cryptic crossword Back of Journal Page 12
Killer sudoku Back of Journal Page 12
Quick crossword and sudoku classic Page 54
Weather Page 55Inside
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Sport
New friends
‘This is a place of hope’Men’s Sheds was founded in
Australia in the late 1990s to
provide social and community
opportunities – primarily for
men over 50. Sunnyside Men’s
Shed, one of 500 in the UK, sits
in a quiet courtyard in Tower
Hamlets, east London. Steve, 64,
(above right), started coming after
his wife died of cancer. “ I went
to a really dark place. I didn’t do
anything for weeks and weeks , I
was on anti depressants, and the
doctor suggested I started doing
something to take my mind out of
it. Coming here was good, because
I had no association with the past.
I’d done a lot of antique restoration
work, woodwork ... and because
I’ve got all that knowledge it’s
great to be able to share it.
“A lot of people have come here
and been rewarded by coming ,”
he added. “They’ve discovered a
new skill, and that might trigger
something new in their life. Or
they may just feel a bit like they’re
part of something.
“It’s very diffi cult for older
people to make new friends. This
is a place for that opportunity to
keep on happening. It’s almost like
a place of hope.” Anna Ploszajski▲ George Osborne was championed by
Boris Johnson’s new administrationРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS