alt Hacker NewsTaxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's
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> In one landmark 2000 study, neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs.
Location is very important here. London cabbies have to pass The Knowledge which is an extremely difficult memory exam that only people with particular kind of brain can do.
I find the title highly misleading. The actual claim is a 40% lower chance (1 in 100 as opposed to 1 in 60) for taxi and ambulance drivers when compared to the average. That’s a big drop but the title implies that Alzheimer’s is rare in taxi drivers specifically and I don’t think the difference warrants that claim whatsoever.
Something with more data:
Seems strange to me that a specific type of thinking could influence something where most causes being investigated are physical
My grandfather was a taxi driver and delivery driver for many years. He made it to 93 and I don't recall him dealing with any cognitive decline. He used to tell me different routes to get to a stadium that was closed before I was even born.
Taxi driver also live shorter lives than average, which would fit with lower levels of alzheimers. But interesting link nonetheless.
Guys... Alzheimer's is 60-80% heritable, and driven largely by APOE genotype. No, you cannot get out of it with One Quick Trick. We have to find therapeutics to make real progress here.
This kind of misdirection is not helpful to the research community, or encouraging politicians to fund effective projects. Everyone WANTS a quick lifestyle change and will latch onto these things, but this is a real biological disease that needs real molecular fixes. Sorry, it's just how it is.
Taxi Drivers: The mean age at death is approximately 67.8 years.
General Population: in the same dataset, life expectancy averaged 74 years.
The average age at which patients are typically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease is 79.
People in these jobs don't live long enough on average to get diagnosed, at the same rate. The same effect will happen in any job that lowers your life expectancy.