Taxi And Ambulance Drivers Have Lower Death Rates From Alzheimer's, Study Finds

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - According to a recent study published in The BMJ, taxi and ambulance drivers have the lowest death rates from Alzheimer's disease among more than 400 occupations analyzed.

'We view these findings not as conclusive, but as hypothesis-generating,' said senior researcher Dr. Anupam Jena, a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. 'But they suggest that it's important to consider how occupations may affect risk of death from Alzheimer's disease and whether any cognitive activities can be potentially preventive.'

'Our results highlight the possibility that neurological changes in the hippocampus or elsewhere among taxi and ambulance drivers may account for the lower rates of Alzheimer's disease,' Jena added.

Hippocampus is a part of the brain which is used for spatial memory and navigation. It is also one of the regions involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

For the study, the researchers analyzed death records of around 9 million people, who died between 2020 and 2022, involved in different occupations.

They found that about 4 percent of those people died of Alzheimer's. Notably, only 1 percent of 16,658 taxi drivers, and 0.7 percent of 1,348 ambulance drivers died from the same condition.

'The same part of the brain that's involved in creating cognitive spatial maps -- which we use to navigate the world around us -- is also involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease,' explained lead researcher Dr. Vishal Patel, a surgical resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

'We hypothesized that occupations such as taxi driving and ambulance driving, which demand real-time spatial and navigational processing, might be associated with a reduced burden of Alzheimer's disease mortality compared with other occupations.'

However, the same trend the was not seen in other related jobs, such as driving a bus, or flying a plane.

'Further research is necessary to definitively conclude whether the spatial cognitive work required for these occupations affects the risk of death from Alzheimer's disease and whether any cognitive activities can be potentially preventive,' the authors concluded.

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