Alarmingly, more than 2 million Thais are unaware that they have diabetes, and have no access to treatment, while 7.7 million are at risk of developing this chronic disease.

Being overweight and obesity are major factors contributing to the increasing prevalence of diabetes, especially in the urban areas. The incidence of obesity among the Thai population continues to show a significant increase, especially among females. Moreover, obesity prevalence among Thai females is ranked second in Asia, after Malaysia, due to unhealthy eating habits and lack of exercise.

Besides kidney failure and high blood pressure, diabetes can lead to the development of complications like cardiovascular disease, which is the second leading cause of death among Thais. The two most common forms of diabetes are types 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes develops because the body’s immune system destroys cells that produce insulin and requires those with this form of the disease to take insulin as part of their treatment. Type 1 diabetes can occur in people of any age, but is most common in children and young adults. Type 2 diabetes is 90 per cent caused by insulin resistance, where the body compensates by making more insulin but not enough to keep blood glucose at normal levels. Type 2 diabetes is commonly found in adults aged 30 years of age and over and is related to excess weight or obesity, one of the causes of insulin resistance.

“Patients who have diabetes and fail to strictly follow their doctors’ instructions will develop serious and fatal complications, such as cardiovascular disease, which is the most common among patients with type 2 diabetes, or non-insulin dependent diabetes. The leading causes of death among patients with insulin-dependent diabetes are kidney failure and cardiovascular disease. People with diabetes are more likely to develop depression or suffer from a stroke, heart failure, and peripheral arterial disease. Furthermore, diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in Thailand,” says Prof Emeritus Wannee Nitiyanant, President of the Diabetes Association of Thailand.

The key to success in diabetes prevention starts with promoting behaviour changes, for example, losing weight, having an active lifestyle, incorporating more fibre into the daily diet, avoiding consuming food high in saturated fats and stopping drinking and smoking. The more changes people make to their lifestyle, the less likely they are to develop diabetes. Moreover, it is essential that individuals who are at risk of developing diabetes get regular blood glucose tests to allow for early diagnosis. Screening for diabetes can assess the risk of developing this chronic disease in the future, which will not only prevent diabetes, but also stop prediabetes from progressing.

Patients with type 1 diabetes have a condition in which the pancreas produces no insulin, making treatment complicated. The treatment includes a healthy diet plan, exercise, self-monitoring of blood glucose, and several insulin injections each day or a Multiple Daily Injection (MDI). Type 2 diabetes can be managed with dietary changes, exercise, medication and/or insulin injection.

“The closed-loop insulin pump system is now successfully developed in research with a view of use for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. It involves a blood glucose monitoring and insulin delivery devices inserted under the skin. The monitoring device will continuously monitor blood glucose level and send a signal to the delivery device, which will automatically provide insulin as needed. The system has recently been used in research, but will take years to develop into a viable treatment option for type 1 diabetes. With regard to treatment of type 2 diabetes, medicines have been developed to lessen side effects of hypoglycemia and weight gain. Injectable diabetes medications include non-insulin medication, which helps improve the stability of blood glucose levels and assists with weight loss, and insulin medication. Now a new generation of long-acting insulin is available and not only does it significantly lower risk of hypoglycemia, it can also be taken at any time of the day without affecting its treatment efficacy,” says Prof Chaicharn Deerochanawong, Scientific Chairman of the Diabetes Association of Thailand.

However, successful diabetes treatment requires more than an insulin shot. It also demands the patient’s cooperation in the control of sugar consumption, adopting healthier lifestyles such as weight loss, having a balanced diet, exercise, quitting drinking and smoking, and seeing a doctor regularly.

It features next-level quality and twice the performance, as well as better video stabilisation and 3X Faster QuikStories, allowing you to share your stories quickly through your phone.

Hosted by Natthaphol Patamapongse, managing director of Mentagram, the sole importer and distributor, the recent launch event at CentralWorld was attended by actor Nawat Kulrattanarak and musician Jetrin Wattanasin, as well as movers and shakers from various industries such as Wannasingh Prasertkul, Ploi Horwang, Piyarat Kaljareuk, Chatpawee Trichachawanwong, Pimpisa Chirathivat, Napasasi Surawan and Parva Nakasaiat.

GoPro HERO6 Black, priced at Bt18,500, achieves an entirely new level of performance including stunning 4K60 and 1080p240 video and the most advanced video stabilization ever achieved in a GoPro, with dramatically improved dynamic range and low-light performance via HDR Mode. It works with the GoPro App, automatically transforming your adventures into cinematic QuikStory videos with 3x faster offload speeds via 5GHz Wi-Fi. Your stories can also be uploaded to GoPro’s cloud storage GoPro Plus automatically. Other features include Voice Control in 10 languages, touch screen, and bar-setting waterproof ability of 10 metres even without a case. You can share your stories through Quik Application conveniently.

Natthaphol notes that the new camera has the most advanced video stabilization ever achieved in a GoPro, as well as next-level Custom GP1 Processor, which gives the image better colour to make things pop without retouching. GP1 also advances GoPro’s capabilities in computer vision and machine learning, enabling HERO6 to analyse visual scenes and sensor data for improved automated QuikStories.

GoPro has also introduced a new campaign MyGoProMoment to invite GoPro users to share their stories through the Quik video editing app.

To take part, share content from your GoPro through Quik and post on social media, either Facebook or Instagram and using hashtags #MyGoProMoment #GoProThailand and tag GoPro for Facebook, and tag GoProThailand for Instagram. The post must be set to public.

There are prizes valued Bt129,500 to be won and the campaign runs from today to December 17. Winners will be announced on Facebook GoPro Thailand on December 22, 2017. Find out more at Facebook.com/GoProThailand  and www.Instagram.com/goprothailand.

BANGKOK RESIDENTS can this week again stock up on produce grown in the North by hilltribes earning income through projects initiated by His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The Royal Project Market returns to Siam Paragon for the third time from Thursday through November 30.

The mall’s Hall of Fame and Parc Paragon will be transformed into a “Food from the Earth” farmers’ market, where the focus will this year be on figs, rhubarb, peaches, strawberries, kidney beans, rice, meat and fish, and coffee and tea.

Chefs will be on hand showing visitors the best ways to prepare the foods for the healthiest outcome, as appetisers, salads, mains, desserts and drinks. The recipes they demonstrate will include Kidney Bean Rice Pancakes, Spicy Grilled Beef with Rhubarb, and Spicy Rainbow Trout Salad (with Lisu chilli dip!)

Terraced rice fields are one feature of Baan Mae Klang Luang on Doi Inthanon – the other is sturgeon-breeding farms.

An exhibition will recount King Bhumibol’s Royal Project Foundation, which helps northern farmers develop crops that can thrive at high altitudes and in cold temperatures.

Switching to these more suitable crops brought an end to the slash-and-burn agriculture, deforestation and cultivation of opium that once prevailed in the area.

Hi-tech mapping visuals will trace the foundation’s history as the region was transformed. Denuded mountains and slopes carpeted with poppies gave way to the replenished forests and verdant croplands seen today.

Highland brown rice is high in fibre and Vitamin B1.

“There are now 39 Royal Project development centres with 200,000 members in 40,000 families across six northern provinces,” says the foundation’s marketing director, Narongchai Pipatthanawong.

“We’ve carefully selected the products for this event to showcase our success in not only producing high-quality produce for the market, but also in bringing sustainable lives to local people.”

The foundation’s book “Food for Health” will be unveiled at the market. It too is about the late monarch and his success in replacing opium cultivation with legal cash crops. It also profiles the nine products highlighted at the market and features several recipes for them.

The book “Food for Health”

The Royal Project development centres present fascinating overviews of sustainable living and the means for alleviating poverty. I recently visited projects in Chiang Mai to learn how the high-quality produce is grown and raised.

Figs require painstaking effort in a climate like Thailand’s. They were first planted about 30 years ago at Royal Agricultural Station Angkhang in Fang district, the Royal Project’s original research station. The experiment failed there and fared no better on Doi Inthanon. It was just too cool for the fig trees to produce fruit.

But the temperature is warmer at the Pang Da Royal Project Development Centre in Samoeng district, and figs have been grown there for the market, though they require careful handling while they mature under roofs. Too much rain causes the roots to rot and high humidity leads to rust under the leaves. The trees are also vulnerable to insects such as the long-horned beetle, which bites a hole in the stem to lay its eggs. The holes are fatal to the trees.

Figs demand a roof if they’re to be successfully nurtured.

Figs are now also grown at the Mae Sa Mai Royal Development Centre in Mae Rim district, and three varieties are being cultivated – Black Genoa, Brown Turkey and Black Mission. The Royal Projects currently produce between 300 and 1,000 kilograms of figs a week.

The book “Food for Health” explains that King Bhumibol loved eating figs, a taste he acquired as a child in Switzerland. Her Royal Highness the late Princess Mother was well aware of their healthy benefits. She once eased the pain of his aphthous ulcer with a thin slice of fresh fig over the blisters.

Rich in calcium, fibre, copper, manganese, magnesium, potassium and many antioxidants, figs can also help control blood pressure.

Peaches in syrup are a top seller for the Royal Project.

More than a decade was spent finding the right kind of peach to grow in Thailand. The Amphan Angkhang grown on Doi Angkhang is named for its golden flesh. Mainly sweet with just a little tang, it’s perfect for jam and smoothies and can be cooked with syrup for a refreshing treat.

Every March and April the Royal Project also raises three other peach variants – Earligrande, Tropic Beauty and Jade.

“One day His Majesty asked the Hmong what was their source of income, apart from opium,” the foundation’s chairman, His Serene Highness Prince Bhisadej Rajani recalls in the book.

“They said ‘peaches’, and told the King the income from growing opium and their small peaches was about the same. His Majesty thought that, if even a small peach could earn the same as opium and if it could be made to grow bigger and taste better, it could probably generate more income.”

His Majesty asked Kasetsart University researchers to look into the matter and donated Bt200,000 from his own pocket to establish the Royal Hill Tribe Assistance Project in 1969. That became the Royal Project in 1980 and the Royal Project Foundation in 1992.

Rhubarb is proving trickier to adapt and is thus far grown only in two locales.

Rhubarb is grown only at the Royal Agricultural Station Angkhang and Khun Huay Haeng sub-centre. Its cultivation is so tricky and time-consuming that it hasn’t yet been encouraged elsewhere. Experimentation is ongoing. Typically, it takes a year for the stalks to become adequately fleshy. Both green and red varieties are grown and they’ve been found suitable for pies and jams as well as savoury dishes.

Cherry arabica coffee is cultivated at Baan Nong Lom on the slopes of Doi Inthanon.

In 1974, hill people were urged to grow more coffee rather than opium after King Bhumibol trekked for seven kilometres to see the plantation at Baan Nong Lom, a Karen village on Doi Inthanon.

“He’d heard we planted coffee and came to visit,” says Payo Tharo, who was the headman there at the time.

“He convinced us to stop growing poppies and gave us better coffee shrubs to plant instead. Today our village produces about four tonnes of unprocessed coffee a year.”

The arabica coffee grown in the shade at Doi Inthanon is distinctive for its aroma, balanced taste and low caffeine content of just 1 or 2 per cent. It’s fared well enough in Thailand that it’s grown at 24 development centres – involving a total of 9,491 rai and 2,600 farmers, who can produce 400 to 500 tonnes unprocessed a year, and the Royal Project guarantees their prices.

Red kidney beans are sturdy enough for long hauls to distant markets.

Shaken and bounced about as his Land Rover negotiated the North’s treacherous “disco roads”, as he jokingly called them, King Bhumibol arrived in Baan Mae Thor in Hod district 48 years ago. He prodded the local farmers to try growing red kidney beans, which would easily survive the long haul to distant urban markets.

Easy to cultivate, the kidney bean wants little more than sun and well-drained soil. The US Agricultural Research Service supplied the initial seeds, but the Royal Project subsequently developed new species that can generate two harvests a year, one of the project’s biggest success stories.

Baan Mae Klang Luang on Doi Inthanon is home to sturgeon-breeding farms.

Fish farming and animal husbandry are also part of the success it’s enjoyed. Rainbow trout for the table, sturgeon for the black caviar, Bresse chicken, pheasants, sheep for wool – these are all the fruits of His Majesty’s foresight and dedication.

BAGS FULL OF GOODNESS

The Royal Project Market will be at Siam Paragon from Thursday through November 30, daily from 10 to 10. Call (02) 610 8000.

Learn more about the Royal Project Foundation at http://www.RoyalProjectThailand.com.

Powerful on its own, and even more impressive in combination with the range of multiroom speakers from B&O Play and Bang & Olufsen , Beoplay M3 is designed by award-winning Cecilie Manz and finely tuned by Bang & Olufsen acoustic engineers to deliver a flexible and immersive listening experience in the modern home.

“Our home wireless speakers are designed around the idea that sound should have a prominent place at home. It is about putting people before technology and designing speakers that earn attention for all the right reasons: immersive sound, a simple user experience and a design that adds warmth to the interior,”, says CEO of B&O Play John Mollanger.

The architecture of Beoplay M3 is based on a simple silhouette. Infinite lines run around the oval shape to draw attention to the detail that makes Beoplay M3 confident in its simplicity: the exchangeable cover that adapts Beoplay M3 to your interior style.

It comes with a front cover in either premium, acoustically transparent wool blend fabric – created by the renowned Danish textile company Kvadrat – or a pearl blasted anodized aluminium cover featuring the recognisable B&O Play hole pattern.

“It is all about character; one that can easily adapt to any interior style. We have worked hard to get the very best of the premium materials used and the result is a sleek, hyper simple speaker with a precise shape. Tight, compact and powerful, Beoplay M3 blends in perfectly with your interior”, says designer Manz.

Carefully designed for the home, you can choose between instant music listening with Bluetooth, streaming music directly from your smart device to the speaker, or you can connect the speaker to Wi-Fi for a multiroom setup. The latter allows you to broadcast your music to as many B&O Play or Bang & Olufsen multiroom speakers as you have in your home, providing simple control of all speakers from a single intuitive app on your smart device.

Beoplay M3 comes with Chromecast Built-in and supports Beolink Multiroom, Apple AirPlay and QPlay 2.0. Beoplay M3 will also support Apple’s AirPlay 2 in 2018 letting you send audio to multiple AirPlay compatible speakers at once, which makes it possible to play music from any iPhone to B&O Play and Bang & Olufsen’s range of speakers for the home.

Beoplay M3 comes in two colours, natural and black, and seasonal colours will follow.

Experience the sound and design at Bang & Olufsen stores at Gaysorn Shopping Centre, the Crystal Ekamai-Ramindhra, and Think Space at Central Eastville.

The Addon T5 from Swedish manufacturer Audio Pro is a compact speaker with a big, beautiful sound full of clarity, warm tone and good bass.

It’s so impressive that respected British firm What Hi-Fi named it “Best Buy 2017” among Bluetooth-enabled speakers.

The Addon T5, distributed in Thailand by ASH Asia International in a choice of white, pink, orange, grey or black, looks sleek with a handle of genuine leather and the woofer embedded in the centre, flanked by two tweeters.

Capping the attractiveness is an aluminium plate holding the control buttons on top.

The T5 isn’t portable – it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet – but it makes up for that with a USB port for recharging your smartphone or tablet while the speaker is streaming music.

Apart from the Bluetooth connection, the T5 has a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting to your MP3 player.

The buttons turn the speaker on or off, pair it with another device, switch between Bluetooth and Auxin functions, and adjust the volume.

The big sound comes from a digital Class D amplifier with 2×8 watts for the stereo tweeters and 25 watts for the woofer. It uses a quarter-inch textile dome tweeter and a four-inch woofer and supports a frequency response of 50 to 20,000Hz.

With its outstanding mid-range tones and proper level of bass, the T5 is ideal for easy-listening music with the aural focus on sweet vocals and light melodies – hits for the saxophone, for example. The speaker’s warm tones make it great for small parties.

While I was giving it a test run, I went easy on the ears and the speaker with the albums “Best of Saxophone Christmas Songs” and “Best Audiophile Voices V”. All that sax and all those voices sounded very sweet indeed.

Audio Pro’s Addon T5 costs Bt7,990 at http://www.AShop.com, Munkong, Hi-Fi Loe, B2S, Another Story, Maengpong, Betrend, Central, Siam Discovery and The Mall.

KEY SPECS

– Amplifier: 2×8 watts and 25 watts

– Drivers: Two 1/4-inch textile dome tweeters, one 4inch woofer.

– Inputs: Bluetooth 4.0, 3.5mm stereo jack

– Output: USB for charging devices (5V 1000mA)

– Frequency: 5020,000Hz, crossover: 3,800Hz

– Dimensions: 130x250x150mm

Sony’s RX10 ultra-compact, shockproof, waterproof digital camera carries a 24mm-equivalent Zeiss Tessar T f4.0 lens and a one-inch Exmor RS CMOS sensor with 15.3 megapixels. It can dive 10 metres deep without its housing and withstand a two-metre fall. You can shoot superslow motion video, up to 1,000 frames per second. You pay Bt24,990 and get a 32GB micro SD card too.

For the guitar fans

The Fender Newport Bluetooth speaker looks like a Fender guitar amp, right down to the classic bass, treble and volume knobs. You get 30 watts of power from two woofers and a tweeter. Portable with a rechargeable battery that lasts 12 hours and able to recharge a phone, it retails for Bt9,900.

You can afford this

Highly affordable at just Bt4,290, the Redmi Note 5A smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Xiomi features a quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It has a dedicated microSD card slot with Dual-SIM (nano+nano) capabilities, a 5.5-inch HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass, a 13MP f/2.0 rear camera, and a 3080mAh battery.

Gaming’s the name

The compact and powerful Gaming FX503 from Asus is equipped with the latest (seventh-generation) Intel Core i77700HQ processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphic card with 4GB of video memory. The notebook has 4GB of RAM and 1TB on the hard drive and comes with a 15.6-inch IPS Full HD display. The FX503 packs a highlighted WASD key group, Nkey rollover, a broad space bar, isolated arrow keys and 0.25mm keycap curves – enabling fast, accurate and comfortable control that’s essential for intense gaming sessions. The going rate is Bt29,990.

Get more from 1More

1More Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones (E1010) use four separate driver components to deliver unsurpassed clarity and dynamic power with a hires bandwidth. They also feature a streamlined anodised-finish sound chamber with perfected ergonomics, which provides exceptional comfort and noise isolation in a sleek and compact design. Grammy-winning sound engineer Luca Bignardi tuned the phones for a fully balanced and ultrarealistic soundstage. Expect to pay Bt6,300.

The Addon T5 from Swedish manufacturer Audio Pro is a compact speaker with a big, beautiful sound full of clarity, warm tone and good bass.

It’s so impressive that respected British firm What Hi-Fi named it “Best Buy 2017” among Bluetooth-enabled speakers.

The Addon T5, distributed in Thailand by ASH Asia International in a choice of white, pink, orange, grey or black, looks sleek with a handle of genuine leather and the woofer embedded in the centre, flanked by two tweeters.

Capping the attractiveness is an aluminium plate holding the control buttons on top.

The T5 isn’t portable – it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet – but it makes up for that with a USB port for recharging your smartphone or tablet while the speaker is streaming music.

Apart from the Bluetooth connection, the T5 has a 3.5mm stereo jack for connecting to your MP3 player.

The buttons turn the speaker on or off, pair it with another device, switch between Bluetooth and Auxin functions, and adjust the volume.

The big sound comes from a digital Class D amplifier with 2×8 watts for the stereo tweeters and 25 watts for the woofer. It uses a quarter-inch textile dome tweeter and a four-inch woofer and supports a frequency response of 50 to 20,000Hz.

With its outstanding mid-range tones and proper level of bass, the T5 is ideal for easy-listening music with the aural focus on sweet vocals and light melodies – hits for the saxophone, for example. The speaker’s warm tones make it great for small parties.

While I was giving it a test run, I went easy on the ears and the speaker with the albums “Best of Saxophone Christmas Songs” and “Best Audiophile Voices V”. All that sax and all those voices sounded very sweet indeed.

Audio Pro’s Addon T5 costs Bt7,990 at http://www.AShop.com, Munkong, Hi-Fi Loe, B2S, Another Story, Maengpong, Betrend, Central, Siam Discovery and The Mall.

KEY SPECS

– Amplifier: 2×8 watts and 25 watts

– Drivers: Two 1/4-inch textile dome tweeters, one 4inch woofer.

– Inputs: Bluetooth 4.0, 3.5mm stereo jack

– Output: USB for charging devices (5V 1000mA)

– Frequency: 5020,000Hz, crossover: 3,800Hz

– Dimensions: 130x250x150mm

On the theme “The Never Ending Story of Magical Land and Legends”, the festival will introduce the uniqueness of Indonesia’s tourist destinations along with their legendary stories, focusing on five routes: Medan–Aceh, Jakarta–Bandung–Banten, Yogyakarta–Solo–Semarang (Joglosemar), Surabaya–Malang, and Bali–Lombok.

“We want Bangkokians to know our country better and understand its richness of nature and culture. This event is presented not only for Thais but also for many other tourists who visit Thailand,” said I Gde Pitana.

The event features art and cultural performances, a concert, a workshop, culinary and fashion bazaar. Indonesian coffee, batik, wayang (shadow puppets) and angklung traditional music instruments are also on display.

Visitors can join creative workshops on ceramic painting, a unique craftwork from Malang, paperdoll making, or sample an array of traditional dishes such as Kerak Telor, Soto Bandung, Martabak and other traditional snacks.

Also available are games, movie screenings and augmented reality and virtual reality presentations of the country’s highlights. A handicraft market has a selection of items perfect as gifts for the upcoming festive season,

Indonesia has 14,572 islands that possess unique characteristics and Minister of Tourism Arif Yahya recently introduced 10 new spots as an alternative choice to Bali for foreign tourists. They include the Riau Islands, Joglosemar (Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Semarang), the Coral Wonders (Wakatobi, Bunaken and Raja Ampat), Medan, Makassar, Lombok and Banyuwangi.

They are all part of the “Wonderful Indonesia” campaign, which aims to attract 15 million foreign tourists in 2017 and 20 million by 2019.

A new study suggests older adults who practice specific computer training exercises that test how fast they respond to visual stimuli could face a 29 percent lower chance of developing dementia, results deemed encouraging by experts even as more work is needed to confirm the link.

The randomized clinical trial involving more than 2,800 people study was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, and used a specific brain-training exercise called “Double Decision,” a patented program by Posit Science that is available on BrainHQ.com.

The exercises tested a person’s ability to look at an object in the center of the screen, like a truck, and click on an object that popped up in the periphery, like a car.

As the user improves, the exercises move faster and become more difficult.

The idea is to exercise the brain’s ability to change — known as plasticity — and to test skills of perception, decision-making, thinking and remembering.

Study authors say the process is like learning to ride a bike, a skill that doesn’t take long to learn but which drives a long-lasting brain change.

Randomized study

Participants were an average age of 74 when they enrolled in the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study.

Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have been published using ACTIVE data, which has now completed 10 years of follow up.

Participants in the trial were assigned at random to four groups: one did computer exercises, a second one followed a series of traditional memory exercises, another did reasoning exercises, and the fourth, a control group, did nothing at all.

Those enrolled in the computer-game part of the study did at least 10 hours of training in the first five weeks of the program.

Some went on to do more training over the next three years, leading to up to 18 hours of total computer work.

“Speed of processing training resulted in decreased risk of dementia across the 10-year period of, on average, 29 percent as compared to the control,” said lead author Jerri Edwards, a researcher at the University of South Florida.

There was no significant difference in risk of dementia for the strategy-based memory or reasoning training groups.

The findings are published a peer-reviewed journal of the Alzheimer’s Association known as Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

– Experts urge caution –

Some outside experts urged a dose of skepticism in interpreting the current study as a magic bullet against dementia, since many previous studies have found little to no benefit in popular online brain-training courses.

“The results reported here, of apparent reduction in risk of dementia after 10 years following only a few hours of cognitive training, are therefore rather surprising and should be treated with caution,” said Rob Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at University College London.

“I find it implausible that such a brief intervention could have this effect.”

According to Doug Brown, director of research at Alzheimer’s Society, the study is “positive” in that it spanned a decade and compared several kinds of brain training.

But it made its conclusions about dementia in patients based on self-reports or from subjects’ families, not clinical diagnoses of the condition.

“This study hints that a particular type of brain training may help people to ward off dementia, but due to limitations of the research, we can’t confidently conclude this,” he said.

Experts say more studies should be conducted to see if the findings can be replicated, and better explained.

There can arguably be no greater threat to the French way of life than a lack of butter.

For months France has been gripped by a slow burning panic that it is running out of the golden ambrosia, which is the base of croissants and pains au chocolat as well as the whole mouth-watering panoply of French patisseries.

Supermarket shelves have been emptied of butter as shoppers worry they will have nothing to put on their breakfast tartines of toasted baguette, while worried bakers fear a “croissant crisis” as prices spiral.

“We always loved butter, but we never knew how much,” sociologist Remy Lucas, says who specialises in people’s relationship with food.

“Now we realise how important it is in our daily lives. Obviously we can replace it nutritionally but the idea that we might be without it is really unbearable,” he adds.

French people eat more butter per capita than anyone else in the world – three times more than Americans – yet still have among the lowest obesity levels of developed countries.

Faced with mounting anxiety about having to go without butter, churn makers say that enquiries from city dwellers who clearly have no access to dairy cows has soared, while a spate of YouTube videos showing people how to make butter have been viewed tens of thousands of times within days of going online.

“It’s been a long time since I did a video which took off so quickly,” says popular recipe blogger Herve Palmieri.

“The last one that went viral with a few million views was ironically about how to make a chocolate cake without butter or sugar,” he adds.

Google says internet searches on how to make butter rocketed 925 per cent between September and October.

Wholesale prices for butter more than tripled over the past year driven by rising demand in Asia, with Chinese consumers in particular reportedly developing a weakness for flaky, butter-rich croissants.

With many French supermarkets refusing to pay higher prices because they tend to fix them annually, butter has gone abroad.

The drop in supplies has been accentuated by panic buying, with the safety net of the EU’s once enormous butter mountain no longer there, having melted away to a mere one percent of its size last year.

Parisian baker Dominique Eury says he has never encountered such a shortage in the 44 years he has been manning his oven in the 17th district of the capital.

“Ten days ago I could not get the butter or cream that I needed. Until now we have got by, what is really worrying me is the holidays. The world has gone mad,” he says.

Eury said he gets through twice as much butter during Christmas as he makes the traditional “buche” chocolate log dessert and the marzipan “galette of the kings” the French eat in January.

With his suppliers only able to get their hands on 80 per cent of the butter they want, Eury says he’s putting stocks aside just in case of a crisis over the Christmas period.

The idea that they could make do with margarine is not something French bakers are prepared to contemplate.

“We make everything with butter,” says Arnaud Delmontel, who has four bakeries in the capital.

Although he believes the shortage is not real, he complained that the rise in prices has become “unreasonable”, and some of the butter he has received had clearly been frozen.

“People are speculating and making a lot of money,” he claims.

Global demand for butter is outstripping supply, according to the US Department of Agriculture, as consumers turn away from vegetable-oil based products in search of something “safer”.

Butter’s image as a cholesterol-choked dietary bad guy has changed radically in recent years. Many scientists now say it is “neutral” health-wise – news that Time magazine celebrated with a 2014 cover proclaiming, “Eat butter”.

All of which further reinforces the French emotional attachment to its creamy comforts, Lucas argued.

Grandmothers in the buttery heartlands of Brittany and Normandy still use it as a cureall for bumps and bruises and Lucas said this “brings us back to our childhood… to the intimate comforts and joy of butter at breakfast and in afternoon snacks. Naturally butter is something that makes us happy.”

“Until the shortage,” he says, “butter was just something in our fridges. We had taken it for granted because we always had it, except during World War II.”

Having to worry about getting enough was “shocking and paradoxical” to French people, the sociologist insists.

“In the ‘Land of Butter’ we find it extremely difficult to imagine that we can live without it.”