Can our profession lower our risk of Alzheimer's-related death? New study suggests the answer may surprise you

New research suggests that people who hone their navigational skills may be less likely to die of Alzheimer’s.

The Mass General Brigham study, published December in BMJ, found that taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest Alzheimer’s death rate among the 443 jobs that were analyzed.

“A landmark neuroimaging study showed that taxi drivers in London, UK, developed enhancing functional changes in the hippocampus,” the study reads. “The hippocampus is the brain region involved in both the creation of cognitive spatial maps and the development of Alzheimer’s disease, which is associated with accelerated hippocampal atrophy.”

Researchers scrutinized National Vital Statistics data between 2020 and 2022, which included almost nine million people. They found that 1.03% of taxi drivers died of Alzheimer’s. Among ambulance drivers, that number is lower still — 0.74%.

“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,” said Dr. Vishal Patel, who is the study’s lead author, in a press release.

The data shows that the bus drivers and pilots did not see the same seeming protection against Alzheimer’s death. These professionals use fixed routes and therefore are not as engaged in the same cognitive functions as taxi and ambulance drivers.

“We view these findings not as conclusive, but as hypothesis-generating. 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 preventative,” says Dr. Anupam B. Jena, another study author.