American researchers analyzed the causes of death of millions of people working in more than 400 different professions.
Could certain professions protect against Alzheimer’s disease? This is what concludes study recently published in the British Medical Journal. Researchers at Mass General Brigham analyzed health data – including cause of death and occupation – of 9 million Americans.
Their analysis found that among 443 occupations, two occupations were associated with a significantly lower rate of Alzheimer’s-related deaths: taxi drivers and paramedics. Specifically, while an average of 3.88% of people included in the study died from Alzheimer’s disease, only 0.74% of paramedics and 1.03% of taxi drivers died from it.
But how to explain these results? According to the authors of the study, this could be linked to the fact that “these professions are associated with neurological changes (in the hippocampus or elsewhere) that reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.” These two professions indeed require one to find one’s way in space very frequently, and the part of the brain, the hippocampus, “that we use to navigate in the world around us is also involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease “said the study’s lead author, Dr. Vishal Patel, in a press release from Mass General Brigham Hospital.
However, “this trend was not observed” among other transport-related professions, such as bus drivers or even airplane pilots, among whom mortality due to Alzheimer’s disease was similar to the average. . These professions rather follow a pre-determined path, which would explain this difference.
Caution, however: this study is observational and will need to be verified by future studies for a real link to be confirmed. For the moment, this is only a “hypothesis”, specify the authors of the study. “But these results suggest that it is important to examine how occupations may affect the risk of death from Alzheimer’s disease and whether certain cognitive activities may be potentially preventative,” says Dr. Anupam B. Jena, author of the study. Each year in France, 225,000 new cases of Alzheimer’s disease are detected.