Healthy living

When it comes to preventing the onset of dementia, we may have a lot to learn from the lifestyles of two indigenous tribes that live deep in the Bolivian Amazon. In the UK, seven per cent of people aged over 65 are living with Alzheimer’s disease; in the USA, the figure is 11 per cent. New research reveals that among the older Tsimane and Moseten people living in Bolivia’s rainforest, only one per cent show signs of the disease. Dementia is the seventh leading cause of death worldwide, and the number of people diagnosed with it globally is set to triple to more than 150 million in the next 30 years. Margaret Gatz, lead author of the study, suggests that something about the tribes’ pre-industrial subsistence lifestyles likely holds the key to our protection against it.