A bracing dip will cure us of the menopause, will it? Remind me to steer clear of the sewage | Catherine Bennett

A new study suggests a fashionable hobby could help with hot flushes and other symptoms

In a climate that often feels hostile to middle-aged women, maybe it's a sign of progress that an only faintly convincing contribution on menopause management can become, as one did last week, a cause for national rejoicing.

That's if it doesn't just confirm suspicions that, where women's health is concerned, any visionary, antique or drug-repudiating theory can still become mainstream. So long as NHS clinicians congratulate women for enduring, say, medieval-style childbirth, maybe it isn't surprising to find an appreciative audience for a new study advocating, for hot flushes and othermenopausal symptoms, cold-water swimming: therapy not strikingly advanced from the cold-bathing regime propounded by a SirJohn Floyer in 1702.