British scientists have found a significant link between later retirement age and later onset of dementia in men.

The research is published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

This result came from an analysis of 382 men with probable Alzheimer’s by scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry and Cardiff University. Information based on education and employment was used to determine the effects of early life education, mid life employment and later life retirement on the age of onset of dementia.

A significant affect was found between later retirement age and later onset of dementia. The small sample of men make the other measures difficult to interpret, but they suggest that education or specific job type has a weaker link with dementia risk.

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As many as one in six people who took part in a study of older people who live at home were under-nourished and at risk of malnutrition, according to the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Researchers at Linkoping University, Sweden, found an overall malnutrition risk of 14.5 per cent when they studied 579 older people aged 75 and 80 as part of an ongoing study. Fifty-two per cent of the people who took part in the study were male. They found that women faced a higher overall risk and that men were more likely to be at risk if they were depressed.

At the first yearly follow-up ten per cent of the 436 people still in the study were under-nourished and faced a malnutrition risk. By the second yearly follow-up the number studied had fallen to 371 but the malnutrition risk had risen to just over 16 per cent.

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