Has science established good conduct for reduce dementia ? Researchers studied 443 occupations and their relationship to Alzheimer’s death rates. According to a study published in the British Medical Journal on December 17, people working two jobs present a lower risk: taxi drivers et the paramedics.
Indeed, researchers at Harvard Medical School analyzed the data of nearly 9 million people who died in the United States between 2020 and 2022. They found that only 1.03% of taxi drivers et 0.91% of paramedics were among the 348,328 Alzheimer’s-related deaths. However, these rates are lower than the 1.69% prevalence in the general population.
Jobs linked to immediate memory
How can these results be explained? Scientists suggest they may be linked to neurological changes in the hippocamp e, a brain region essential to memory. Indeed, professions related to city driving require rapid memorization of spatial information, such as street names. However, it is one of the cognitive functions involving the hippocampus, and this same region is the first affected by Alzheimer’s.
The results confirm previous studies, notably on London taxi drivers. Functional changes in the hippocampus were observed in these workers after years of driving in the city.
-Results to be confirmed
However, the sample mainly concerns men, while women are more affected by Alzheimer’s. In addition, the participants died younger than themiddle age at which the illness occurs, namely 65 years. Further research will therefore be necessary to confirm these results.
Although no direct causal link can be proven, this avenue opens new research perspectives to understand and prevent Alzheimer’s. As a reminder, this disease affects around 900,000 people in France, and remains a major cause of dependence in the elderly.
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