Oh huh: Apparently the incidence of old age dementia is steadily going down quite substantially (hugely good news, dementia is a terrifying disease, for those affected, for those caring for them, and for health care systems as a whole) and while there’s many theories, no one really fully knows why?
@noiob like, on a personal level, there’s not too many diseases I am more scared of than dementia, for myself someday, for my parents before that. And on a societal level, what if the issue that we were going to have where there’s not enough young people to provide care for too many old people who can’t do it themselves is just… substantially less of an issue? Like not a non-issue, society is still aging, cases are still up. But less of one.
@noiob It might really just be a combination of many environmental factors (less lead, less asbestos, less tobacco, less alcohol, …), and possibly more cognitive reserve too. But no matter why, if these trends are right and even if they stopped instead of continuing (and they might still continue) this feels genuinely huge?