According to a recent study, occupations requiring a lot of spatial processing, like navigating to a hospital or figuring out a taxi route, may have a reduced death risk from Alzheimer’s disease. Mass General Brigham researchers looked into this possibility by assessing the likelihood of Alzheimer’s disease death across 443 professions using national data on the occupations of deceased individuals. Compared to other occupations, they discovered that driving an ambulance or a cab was linked to a lower death risk from Alzheimer’s disease. The BMJ publishes the results.
Lead author Vishal Patel, MD, MPH, a resident physician in Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Department of Surgery, stated that Alzheimer’s disease develops in the same area of the brain that creates cognitive spatial maps, which we use to navigate the environment. “We expected that, in comparison to other occupations, employment that require real-time spatial and navigational processing, such driving an ambulance or a cab, could be related with a lower burden of Alzheimer’s disease mortality.”
Patel and associates at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the original members of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, examined deaths from 443 different occupations in adults from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022, using data from the National Vital Statistics System. The team considered the occupation that the individual had worked in for the majority of their working life, as well as socio-demographic data such as age, sex, race, ethnicity, and educational attainment.
Over 3.88% (348,328) of the roughly 9 million participants in the study, who were from all occupations, passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease claimed the lives of 1.03% of taxi drivers (171/16,658) and 0.74% of ambulance drivers (10/1348). The jobs with the lowest percentage of Alzheimer’s disease-related mortality, after adjustment, were taxi drivers (1.03%) and ambulance drivers (0.91%). Other transportation-related occupations that follow set routes, such bus drivers (3.11%) and airplane pilots (4.57%), which are less dependent on real-time spatial and navigational processing, did not show this increase. Other forms of dementia did not exhibit the trend.
Senior author Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD, a doctor in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, stated, “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.”
Since this is an observational study, the authors point out that it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions regarding cause and effect. The authors also note several drawbacks, such as the possibility that people with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease are less inclined to pursue or continue in memory-intensive driving professions like cab and ambulance driving. But since the symptoms of Alzheimer’s usually appear after working age, they argue this is improbable.
Jena stated, “We see these findings as hypothesis-generating rather than decisive.” However, they advise that it is crucial to take into account how a person’s profession may impact their chance of dying from Alzheimer’s disease and whether engaging in any cognitive activities could potentially reduce that risk.
-Raja Aditya
