You’ve arrived – it’s too easy!
Taxi and ambulance drivers have the lowest death rate from Alzheimer's disease, suggesting Google Maps may be rotting our brains by not forcing us to be more cognitively flexible According to an interesting new study,
According to a study published in the journal This Month, 1.03% of taxi drivers and 0.91% of ambulance drivers (most of whom worked before the widespread use of GPS navigation systems) died from the disease, compared to and 3.9% for other drivers. medical journal BMJ.
Researchers, who analyzed 400 jobs, said professional drivers may be at lower risk of developing the disease because they constantly make split-second navigation and spatial decisions while on the job.
“They are literally making decisions every few seconds about where to go and where to go,” said study author Anupam Jena, a professor of health at Harvard Medical School. wall street journal.
“How your brain is used throughout your career and life can influence your chances of developing dementia.”
Drivers who do not rely on robots for directions will need to make problem-solving decisions about how to get from one point to another when roads are closed or blocked, potentially straining the driver's cognitive abilities. Researchers said it could protect them.
However, the researchers said taxi and ambulance drivers were not at lower risk of developing other types of dementia, which are often vascular diseases.
Overall, the study looked at 107,896 U.S. men and women in a variety of occupations, from janitors to computer professionals.
Other experts said driving a taxi or an ambulance may simply delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
“Being a taxi driver is unlikely to have prevented the brain from developing Alzheimer's disease, but it may have helped mask some symptoms for longer periods of time,” said David Wolk, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. I was able to do it.''
Researchers used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from death certificates from 2020 to 2022 that list occupation and cause of death.
The study does not say when the subjects worked as taxi or ambulance divers, but it does state that all subjects were free of Alzheimer's disease from 1986 to 2002.
This study supports previous evidence that education and brain stimulation may help slow the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
