A growing body of evidence suggests that a compound called choline plays an under-appreciated role in our health – particularly in our heads.

New research suggests low levels of choline in obese people could contribute to brain ageing and potentially trigger the kind of neurodegenerative changes that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. The study – along with others linking choline to higher bone density, better memory and improved mental health – has led some scientists to class choline as a “wonder nutrient” that “has been hugely overlooked”, said BBC Future.

What is choline?
An essential nutrient: not a vitamin or a mineral, but an organic compound closely related to the B-vitamin group. Humans need choline for numerous bodily functions, including liver function and the production of acetylcholine, a brain chemical that plays a major role in memory, thinking and learning.

We produce small amounts of choline in our liver, but to get enough, we need to consume it in food. The most common sources are eggs, red meat, chicken, potatoes, yoghurt, fish, leafy greens and kidney beans. The average adult needs about 425mg a day (about three eggs’ worth). Pregnant and breastfeeding women need more, as choline “plays a key role” in building a baby’s healthy brain, said The Telegraph.

What did the latest study find?
Researchers from Arizona State University analysed key chemical levels and biomarkers in 15 people with obesity, and compared them with those of 15 people of a healthy weight. The results, published in the journal Ageing and Disease, show that those with obesity had less circulating choline, more biomarkers associated with inflammation and higher levels of blood proteins indicating neuron damage.

The small study didn’t prove cause and effect, but the “big picture” is that obesity, choline and the accelerated brain ageing that can lead to dementia “could all be connected”, said ScienceAlert. Low levels of choline could be an “early warning sign” of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and it’s possible that a “boost” in choline levels could be an effective “preventive measure”.

What about other studies?
Low levels of choline have been identified as having a “significant link” with anxiety disorders, according to a meta-analysis published last month in Molecular Psychiatry.

University of California researchers looked at data from 25 studies and found that levels of choline were 8% lower in the brains of people with anxiety disorders. That “doesn’t sound like that much”, study co-author Richard Maddock told New Atlas, “but, in the brain, it’s significant”.

“Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” has long functioned as shorthand for a middle-class local signing a letter of complaint. But “I’ve lived in Tunbridge Wells for 20 years, and have never met anyone disgusted”, said Robert Taylor in The Spectator. “Until this week.” 

Thousands in the royal town in Kent were left without water for six days after supplies were cut on Saturday, leaving them unable to flush toilets, shower or even wash their hands. “Yup, we’re all disgusted now.”

‘Not very joyful’
The Pembury Water Treatment Works closed last weekend after a “chemical issue”, said South East Water. The closure caused a complete loss of water or low pressure in up to 24,000 homes. The local MP, Lib Dem Mike Martin, said the issue was caused by a “bad batch of coagulant chemicals”, the presence of which meant water was not pumped into storage tanks, resulting in low levels. And while the water company initially aimed to fix the problem by 6pm on Tuesday, it issued a “boil water notice” for affected homes the following day, to be in place “until further notice”.

Some residents “resorted to a strip-wash” or “resigned themselves to the reality of giving up on getting clean entirely”, said The Telegraph’s Abigail Buchanan. The “most popular attraction in town” was a “block of (slightly smelly) temporary toilets”. Schools, businesses, libraries, community centres and sports centres also closed. 

The town’s Christmas lights spell out “Joy to the Wells”, but a passerby observed: “It’s not very joyful at the moment, is it?”

‘Community spirit’
“Almost all” of the properties affected have now had their water restored, according to South East Water.
The company said it would address compensation once the incident was fully resolved – but the price could be high. Local MP Martin is already demanding “Covid-style” compensation of £18.5 million for affected businesses. Those businesses are still “counting the cost” of the crisis, said the BBC, and a health alert for families to boil water remains in place.

As to the final cost of compensation for lost revenue at this busy time of the year, “I have no idea”, said Taylor in The Spectator. But the good news is that “community spirit” has been abundant, with “friends helping elderly neighbours”, and those in the “relatively unscathed” west of the town offering bathroom facilities to those in the east. “Not having clean water doesn’t half put things in perspective”, and when you lose something as “crucial to life as water”, everything else appears “monumentally insignificant”.

Residents are transported through West Java’s waterlogged streets after heavy rain caused the Citarum River to overflow. Indonesia is at the epicentre of floods that have killed more than 1,600 people, with hundreds more missing, across South and Southeast Asia.

Timur Matahari / AFP / Getty Images

Scottish Borders: Kirklands House, Melrose
A charming B-listed country house, in a secluded and elevated setting with more than five acres of mature gardens and woodland. 6 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, study, stables, workshop, garden, parking. OIEO £1.1 million; Savills

Northumberland: Greystead Rectory, Tarset
Handsome Grade II rectory set above the river North Tyne in Northumberland National Park. 6 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 2 receps. £1 million; Finest Properties

Kent: Oak Hall, Hythe
A charming townhouse with many period features. Main suite, 4 further beds, 2 baths, kitchen/ breakfast room, 3 receps, cellar, walled garden, garage. £1.15 million; Savills

Norfolk: Ivy Cottage, Burnham Market
This is a delightful cottage that overlooks the village green. It was a finalist in the Homebuilding Magazine Competition for its interior architectural redesign. 3 beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, garden. £895,000; Sowerbys

Somerset: Vineyards, Bath
An eye-catching townhouse (corner building on left) in the city centre just off The Paragon. The property boasts plenty of period features, including original fireplaces. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, utility, 3 receps, courtyard garden. £1.25 million; Knight Frank

The myth of the NHS
Theodore Dalrymple on The Critic
Our health service has been “stumbling” from “crisis to crisis, for decades”, writes retired doctor Theodore Dalrymple. Many European countries have “better healthcare systems”. We are paying “dearly” for the myth that the NHS is the envy of the world and for “the equal myth that the alternative” is people dying “in the street”. This has “prevented serious thought about how healthcare should be arranged”, and “the longer” such avoidance continues, “the more painful the reformation”.

Bring back the album
Flora Watkins in The Spectator
When my 10-year-old asked me “What’s an album?”, I was “winded”, writes Flora Watkins. “I blame my husband”, who “scooped up every CD we owned” and “digitised them”, leaving “no physical music in our house”. Everything we play “at home and on the school run” is streamed, and “Spotify has infantilised us” by “shifting focus from albums to individual tracks”. So I’ve bought a record player in the hope of “rewiring” our brains.

We do well on integration, so let’s not ruin it
Emma Duncan in The Times
Nigel Farage has “turned views that were once considered out of bounds for the bien pensants into mainstream opinions”, writes Emma Duncan. “Britain is a far less racist country than it used to be” and “has been more successful at integrating immigrants than most”. Now, a “surge in new arrivals” and Reform “giving anti-immigrant sentiments a voice” threaten this “achievement”, and could “undermine a success of which we should be proud”.