The General Hospital Corp.

TUESDAY, Dec. 17, 2024 -- Taxi and ambulance drivers need to have quick wits and nimble reflexes to cut through traffic effectively. Turns out that these traits might also protect them from Alzheimer’s disease , according to a new study published Dec. 16 in the BMJ . “The same part of the brain that’s 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,” explained lead researcher Dr. Vishal Patel , a surgical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “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,” Patel added in a hospital news release. However, the same benefit didn’t hold for jobs that rely on following a fixed route, such as driving a bus or flying a plane, researchers noted. For the study, researchers analyzed death records of nearly 9 million people involved in 443 different occupations. The people all died between 2020 and 2022. Across all occupations, nearly 4% of those people died from Alzheimer’s disease. But only 1% of taxi drivers and 0.7% of ambulance drivers died from Alzheimer’s, researchers found. After adjustment, ambulance and taxi drivers had the lowest proportion of deaths due to Alzheimer’s out of all the professions. By comparison, about 3% of bus drivers and 4% of pilots died from Alzheimer’s, results show. “Our results highlight the possibility that neurological changes in the hippocampus or elsewhere among taxi and ambulance drivers may account for the lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior researcher Dr. Anupam Jena , a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The hippocampus is the brain region that helps transfer short-term memories into long-term memory, according to the Cleveland Clinic . It also plays a role in navigation and emotional processing. However, researchers noted that this was an observational study and can’t prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between those careers and a lower risk of Alzheimer’s. “We view these findings not as conclusive, but as hypothesis-generating,” Jena said. “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 preventive.” Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

THURSDAY, Dec. 12, 2024 -- A blood draw is a typical part of a person's regular check-up. But that blood sample might hold a lot more useful information about a person’s health than doctors are currently getting. A new study shows that a routine part of a blood test called the complete blood count (CBC) could be used to help doctors identify or predict many different diseases, including heart problems, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and kidney disease, researchers reported Dec. 11 in the journal Nature . “Complete blood counts are common tests, and our study suggests CBCs vary a lot from person to person even when completely healthy, and a more personalized and precision medicine approach could give more insight into a person’s health or disease,” said senior researcher Dr. John Higgins , a pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. A CBC measures the numbers of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets in a person’s blood, researchers explained in background notes. Because these blood cells circulate throughout the body, the test could be used to provide timely information on a wide range of diseases. Using blood drawn from more than 25,000 patients, researchers figured out that every individual has a “set point” for each part of their blood makeup as measured by a complete blood count. By using these set points, doctors might be able to diagnose early-stage diseases in people who otherwise appear healthy, researchers said. For example, lower hemoglobin concentration in blood is associated with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure, researchers said. Hemoglobin is the component in red blood cells that carries oxygen to tissues throughout the body. Other info that might be gleaned from a CBC: Even a person’s overall death risk can be calculated using the test, researchers added. Extremely high or low blood count set points in apparently healthy people were associated with an absolute 10-year risk of death that varied by more than 5%. “Set points seem to identify large fractions [more than 20%] of healthy adults in our study population with more than 2% to 5% increase in absolute 10-year risk of all-cause mortality or diagnosis of major diseases, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes and other conditions for which early intervention can be effective,” researchers wrote. These findings are consistent with earlier studies, they noted. For example, lower hemoglobin has been associated with heart attack outcomes, red blood cell size with hip fractures and white blood counts with diabetes. “Although further work is needed to understand the mechanisms generating these associations, this study shows that for multiple diseases, set points produce a 2- to 4-fold relative risk stratification, which is comparable to that provided by common disease screening factors including family history and some genetic mutations,” the researchers concluded. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 11, 2024 -- In a clinical practice guideline issued by the American Society for Radiation Oncology and published online Nov. 25 in Practical Radiation Oncology , updated recommendations are presented for the use of radiation therapy (RT) for operable rectal cancer . Jennifer Y. Wo, M.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues provide an update on three key questions related to the role of RT for patients with operable rectal cancer: neoadjuvant RT indications, neoadjuvant regimen selection, and indications for consideration of a nonoperative management (NOM) or local excision approach after definitive/preoperative chemoradiation. According to the authors, neoadjuvant RT is strongly recommended for patients with stage II to III rectal cancer, but consideration of omission of neoadjuvant RT is conditionally recommended in favor of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with a favorable treatment response or upfront surgery among patients deemed at lower risk for locoregional recurrence. A total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT) approach is strongly recommended for patients with T3 to T4 and node-positive rectal cancer undergoing neoadjuvant RT. TNT with chemotherapy before or after long-course chemoradiation is strongly recommended among patients with a higher risk for locoregional recurrence, while there is a conditional recommendation for TNT with short-course RT followed by chemotherapy. Concurrent chemoradiation followed by consolidation chemotherapy is strongly recommended for patients with rectal cancer for whom NOM is a priority. Selection of RT dose-fractionation regimen, therapy sequence, and consideration of NOM should be ascertained by multidisciplinary consensus. "These emerging treatment paradigms allow for more personalized and nuanced recommendations that are tailored to each individual patient’s level of risk as well as their priorities, providing the right balance between effective cancer control and preserving quality of life," Wo said in a statement. Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry. Abstract/Full Text Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.