━━ Alzheimer's avoids these two professions: And no, they're not doctors.
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There are many diseases associated with old age. One of the bogeymen is Alzheimer’s disease, which is one of the most common types of dementia. However, according to experts, there are two professions that can help avoid or prevent this disease. What are they?
Despite huge advances in medicine, there is still no treatment that can prevent or completely cure Alzheimer’s disease. The disease is not selective; it can affect anyone. Can’t it? Because one study has come up with some interesting findings. If you work two certain jobs, the disease eludes you. And doctors are not one of them.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have revealed a rather groundbreaking finding that taxi and ambulance drivers are much less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. The study revealed that of the people who died from it and were in different professions, taxi drivers accounted for 0.91% of deaths and ambulance drivers accounted for 1.03% of deaths.
Nearly 9 million people who died between 2020 and 2022 in the U.S. were analyzed. The researchers used their occupational data to compare 443 people whose jobs required real-time spatial perception and who died of Alzheimer’s disease.
━━ People in this profession make more active use of a part of the brain called the hippocampus.
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The main reason why taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely to get sick is the active use of a part of the brain called the hippocampus. It is responsible for learning, memory and spatial orientation. This part of the brain is damaged by Alzheimer’s early on. The explanation is that these drivers make more use of navigational and spatial tasks.
“The same part of the brain that is 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,” said public health researcher and physician Vishal R. Patel.
“We hypothesized that occupations that require real-time spatial and navigational processing might be associated with reduced Alzheimer’s mortality compared to other occupations,” he added.
Because these occupations require constant perception of orientation, they develop a cognitive defence mechanism. These results, however, cannot be considered completely conclusive and all-inclusive, as more research is needed. Nevertheless, it is clear that if regular use of the hippocampus occurs, there is the possibility of potentially avoiding Alzheimer’s disease.
“The results suggest that it is important to consider how occupation may affect the risk of death from Alzheimer’s disease and whether any cognitive activities could potentially be preventive,” Anupam B added. Jena, one of the study’s authors.
