> "highest ever" among some specific arbitrary demographic isn't very meaningful

It's meaningful if you do actually happen to be of that demographic. It's no longer arbitrary then, sure, but I do care quite a lot if something bad is affecting men because I'm one of those.

Not only that, but many of the people I care most about in the world are men too ! probably a bit over half!

Also, how specific is "middle aged men"? thats a huge portion of society - I'd have understood your point if this was about like, people employed as painters in texas. But this has such a huge N, alongside a relatively unambiguous test (I trust reporting of these statistics more or less)