What are the two surprising occupations with the lowest mortality rates from Alzheimer's disease?
Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers: population based cross sectional study | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-082194
Mass General Brigham Study Finds Lower Rates of Death from Alzheimer's Disease Among Taxi and Ambulance Drivers | Mass General Brigham
https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/articles/lower-alzheimers-death-rates-among-taxi-and-ambulance-drivers
These 2 Jobs Have The Lowest Alzheimer's Death Rates. But What Does It Mean? : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/these-2-jobs-have-the-fewest-deaths-from-alzheimers-but-what-does-it-mean
According to a research team from Harvard Medical School and others, the number of deaths due to Alzheimer's disease has doubled over the past 30 years, making research into the risks and treatments of Alzheimer's disease increasingly important.
Previous research has shown that the volume of the hippocampus , which is responsible for memory and spatial navigation, changes in the brains of taxi drivers working in London, England. Since the hippocampus is also involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease, the research team hypothesized that 'working in an occupation that requires frequent spatial processing, such as taxi driving, may be related to the mortality rate from Alzheimer's disease.'
To test this hypothesis, the research team collected data on a total of 8,972,221 people who died in the United States between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022, and analyzed the occupations and causes of death of these people. The final dataset included 443 occupational groups, including 'taxi drivers' and 'ambulance drivers' as occupations that require unpredictable and real-time spatial navigation. The dataset included 348,328 deaths due to Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for 3.88% of the total.
After controlling for age at death, sex, race, and education, the overall mortality rate from Alzheimer's was 1.69%. Among 443 occupational groups, ambulance drivers had the lowest mortality rate from Alzheimer's, at just 0.91%, followed by taxi drivers, at 1.03%.
The graph below shows the adjusted Alzheimer's disease mortality rate by occupation, including 'ambulance drivers' and 'taxi drivers,' as well as 'bus drivers,' 'ship captains,' and 'aircraft pilots,' who also drive vehicles. Compared to other vehicle drivers, ambulance and taxi drivers have a significantly lower Alzheimer's disease mortality rate.
Compared to other vehicle drivers, ambulance and taxi drivers do not have pre-determined routes, so they require real-time spatial processing and navigation skills, which may explain why ambulance and taxi drivers have a lower Alzheimer's disease mortality rate.
It should be noted that this study is based solely on observations, and thus only derives a correlation, not a causal relationship that 'becoming an ambulance or taxi driver reduces the risk of death from Alzheimer's disease.' The research team points out that people who are originally at high risk of Alzheimer's disease may be less likely to become ambulance or taxi drivers or to continue working. In addition, subjects in these occupations tended to die relatively young, so it is unclear whether their risk of Alzheimer's disease remains low even if they live longer.
'We do not view our findings as conclusive but as hypothesis-generating,' said
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