Taxi Drivers Rarely Die of Alzheimer's (theconversation.com) 64
An anonymous reader shares a report from The Conversation, written by Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineer who has "spent more than two decades staring at maps" and spatial data. Sharif finds one connection especially fascinating: the link between spatial reasoning and why taxi drivers seem to have lower rates of Alzheimer's. From the report: Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer's disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S. [...] Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer's disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer's, compared with 1 in 60 people overall. This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs.
The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer's was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn't seem to experience a similar advantage. Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer's risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It's one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer's damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study, neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as "The Knowledge" that takes three to four years.
The researchers found that London taxi drivers had measurably more gray matter in the posterior hippocampus, a brain area tied to storing large-scale spatial maps. That volume tracked with experience: The longer someone had driven, the larger that part of the brain. The change was built through practice, not inherited. While people who are good at navigation might gravitate to this kind of job, the job itself does have an impact on the brain. Together, these two studies make a coherent case: Work that intensively exercises the hippocampus may reshape it, and that reshaping may protect against one of the most feared diseases of aging.
The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer's was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn't seem to experience a similar advantage. Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer's risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It's one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer's damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study, neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as "The Knowledge" that takes three to four years.
The researchers found that London taxi drivers had measurably more gray matter in the posterior hippocampus, a brain area tied to storing large-scale spatial maps. That volume tracked with experience: The longer someone had driven, the larger that part of the brain. The change was built through practice, not inherited. While people who are good at navigation might gravitate to this kind of job, the job itself does have an impact on the brain. Together, these two studies make a coherent case: Work that intensively exercises the hippocampus may reshape it, and that reshaping may protect against one of the most feared diseases of aging.
Do they die earlier, of stress? (Score:2)
Or are they more mentally fit due to more social interactions and navigating a car?
Any details on that?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Do they die earlier, of stress? (Score:5, Informative)
Main outcomes measures Among 443 occupations studied, percentage of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease for taxi drivers and ambulance drivers and each of the remaining 441 occupations, adjusting for age at death and other sociodemographic factors.
We then used multivariable logistic regression at the individual level to estimate risk adjusted percentages of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease for each occupation, adjusting for age at death (indicator variables for each year of age), sex (male or female), race and ethnic group (black, white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, other race), and educational attainment (indicator variables for 8th grade, 9-12th grade, high school, college, master’s or doctorate). Mortality odds ratios from the multivariable model were also ranked from lowest to highest across occupations to facilitate identification of occupations with the lowest risk of death from Alzheimer’s disease; chief executive (occupation code: 0010) was arbitrarily chosen as the reference group in regression models. We performed four sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our comparisons...
Would you look at that, Slashdot skeptic! The scientists running the study actually did control for the blatantly obvious codependent variables. What a time to be alive!
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Looking at Figure 1 from the paper, taxi drivers and ambulance drivers are clear lower-bound outliers in terms of risk from Alzheimer's. But they also die a full decade before the eyeballed mean of the population. There are a couple of data points in the middle plot from that figure that have just slightly higher adjusted risk of Alzheimer's, but have lifespans at ca. 80 years that are well *above* the mean. Regrettably, the paper does not discuss those data points -- me, I'd want to have those occupatio
Sedentary job + long hours + poor sleep hygiene (Score:4, Interesting)
= heart disease.
Circumstantial I know, I have a nurse friend who did a spell in cardiac ward with notable amount of taxi driver patients.
They can only earn sitting down getting stressed in traffic, eating crap food on the go
Re: Sedentary job + long hours + poor sleep hygien (Score:2)
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I was wondering that, as a healthy occupation goes, whether cycle courier was up there. Could add cycle powered tuk tuks and recon infantry to that list.
Any occupation essentially that mirrors our hunter gatherer forebears who had a different set of health challenges granted, like no antibiotics for one, but they were on their feet, in their bodies and minds. Essentially not doing this shit, whatever I am calling myself today, technologist, lol.
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I can't figure out whether the study considered someone's *previous* occupations, or simply their most recent occupation listed at time of death. This would be super important surely, because... even with the earliest signs of alzheimer's you might struggle to navigate as well as you used to, and thus decide to get a different job, perhaps working in a retail store, or... whatever. Basically, how much does "I can't do this job effectively anymore so I'll do a different one until I die" skew the figures... o
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I can't figure out whether the study considered someone's *previous* occupations, or simply their most recent occupation listed at time of death.
From TFOriginalScientificArticle: "Additionally, death certificates included a field for reported usual occupation (the occupation in which the decedent spent most of their working life), generally completed by a funeral director with help from the decedent’s informant."
How do they measure occupation [Re:Do they die...] (Score:3)
It's a good question.
Not enough information here. Alzheimer's disease starts slow, and progresses incrementally for years. My first hypothesis would be that taxi drivers in the early stages of Alzheimer's become unable to drive effectively, and hence leave the profession years before they are diagnosed with Alzheimer's; hence their death certificates don't list "taxi driver" as their occupation.
But the observation that taxi drivers die an average of ten years earlier than other occupations also makes the ex
Re: How do they measure occupation [Re:Do they die (Score:2)
Very early symptoms could discourage the job well before obvious symptoms and inability surface.
But I'll taking dying 10 years prior as a strong hint that driving cabs might not be a good choice. (There are some other aspects of cab driving, varying substantially over where you do it that should also be considered. It's not the same job in many respects in NY vs Toronto or LA.)
C != C (Score:2)
It could be a case of confusing correlation with causation.
People who are easily confused and have trouble paying attention to the road will choose other professions.
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It could be a case of confusing correlation with causation.
People who are easily confused and have trouble paying attention to the road will choose other professions.
Also, this is about the risk of dying from Alzheimer's. Depending on when we're talking about, it could be that they die from something else first, like secondhand smoke.
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That's not a "could be". They *did* report that. And adjusted the statistics to handle that effect. There's a reasonable argument that "10 years earlier" is hard to adjust for", though.
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Alzheimer's disease is not related to people who have trouble paying attention or who are "easily confused". Alzheimer's is not a personality flaw that somehow leads to dementia, it is a neurological condition that is physically visible in brain tissue.
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Or are they less physically fit and dies from other diseases before Alzheimer's becomes an issue?
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What about navigating PornHub? (Score:5, Funny)
Just asking for a friend.
fuck you google (Score:2)
not content with stealing my data, now you're going to lure me with your amazing navigation and give me Alzheimers???
Can people with early alzheimers drive taxy? (Score:2)
Sure, the study shows a connection.
Or it kills them undiagnosed (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Or it kills them undiagnosed (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps taxi and ambulance drivers just get killed on the job in the early stages of the disease, causing the death to be attributed to anther cause?
Or perhaps the study has controlled for that, as it clearly explains in the freely accessible text.
Or perhaps the way they controlled for that was inadequate. If even ONE PERCENT of the deaths attributed to other causes was actually due to Alzheimers, that would swamp the observed effect. Can they say for sure that their method of controlling for other effects is better than 99% effective?
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They die more often (and at a younger age) from gunshot wounds and traffic accidents.
I kid, I kid...
Re:Or it kills them undiagnosed (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm always baffled by what's going through your head, when someone like you posts something like this. Normally I don't bother following up, but this time, sure, why not.
Several professional researchers spent months or years on this research. Several other professional researchers evaluated the results and concluded that they held together and convincingly supported their conclusions. And now you looked at the headline of an article quoting another article quoting the paper, spent fifteen seconds thinking a
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Also I don't understand jokes either.
Nope, the fellow doubled down in a reply. Anyways, you're not the person I was asking, but thanks for... that.
Re: Or it kills them undiagnosed (Score:2)
Many studies draw bullshit conclusions from inadequate data and are later invalidated, so skepticism is warranted.
In this case there are numerous strong confounding factors which it really doesn't sound like they investigated, let alone addressed
Re: Or it kills them undiagnosed (Score:2)
Perhaps so. That's not what the person I was responding to was talking about, and it's not what I'm talking about.
I tried to resist, but I am weak (Score:2)
"Taxi Drivers Rarely Die of Alzheimer's"
"It's usually the illegal left turns what does for 'em, guvnor!"
So FSD will dumb me down... (Score:1)
What about engineers? (Score:2)
And I don't mean software developers but actual engineers that work with CAD and blueprints. I wonder whether that counts too.
Have we compared? (Score:2)
Too bad we killed off most of the taxi drivers (Score:3)
Re: Too bad we killed off most of the taxi drivers (Score:2)
Soft life, soft brain? (Score:2)
The rise of Alzheimer's disease in the late 20th century, at least in the U.S., coincided with the highest standard of living ever achieved by humans. It's interesting that a population with less cognitive load than ever before suffered conspicuously from memory degradation.
I wonder if the findings generalize to "navigation" understood more broadly. For example, writers "navigate" through stories, maintaining a mental map of social relationships, plot points, and sometimes fictional geography. There are man
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The rise of Alzheimer's disease in the late 20th century, at least in the U.S., coincided with the highest standard of living ever achieved by humans.
It also coincides with an improved definition of Alzheimer's, and more effective detection and diagnosis.
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This is what I was thinking. We've always been a species that has had to navigate, whether it's large distances, or even if in settlements, we would still have to navigate trails and pathways and get around, and know our surroundings.
Might be interesting to compare the rates of people who hike frequently, or mountain bike (both require memorizing trail systems, somewhat similar to our species previous lifestyles.) Even FPS games like Doom might trigger this.
I'm not super close with a lot of riders, but I ha
Re: Soft life, soft brain? (Score:2)
Re: Soft life, soft brain? (Score:2)
People were mobile until they invented agriculture, but then they also started eating more carbs...
Does this translate to navigating in video games? (Score:3)
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GPS (Score:2)
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Kessler syndrome will end GPS within a generation or two.
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They all use GPS now, so they are all as doomed as the rest of us.
London cabbies still have to pass The Knowledge. It's in the summary.
ARG (Score:2)
CORRELATION IS NOT ... Oh damnit, You know already.
Accept All (Score:3)
Now Google Maps will have to have an additional warning stating that use of the app may give you Azlheimer's. Don't read it, just hit Accept All.
Cherry picking more perilous than driving (Score:2)
"Mortality data were obtained from the National Vital Statistics System, a population based registry of all deaths in the US from 1 January 2020-31 December 2022."
"To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as "The Knowledge" that takes three to four years. "
I think it is interesting authors of TFA would choose to inject tidbits well outside the bounds of the dataset to conclude two studies make a "coherent case" when t
Re: Cherry picking more perilous than driving (Score:2)
Pianists? (Score:1)
Re: Pianists? (Score:2)
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It's viola players that normally have to supplement their income driving a cab.
From what I've heard, viola players often die young, so they never have time to develop Alzheimer's. Their main cause of death seems to be violins.
Time well spent. (Score:2)
Years playing 3d games and could probably still play DOOM from memory.
Of course this could all just be a self selection process, where innate spacial memory make you more likely to be a successful, long term taxi driver as well as prevent Alzheimers.
Re: Time well spent. (Score:2)
Use it or Lose it (Score:4, Interesting)
The brain needs exercise like muscles do. The type of activities that cab drivers do provide cognitive exercise. Sadly, they don't get as much physical exercise. It's a trade off.
The take away should be that if you want a long and healthy life -live a physically and mentally active life.
What about social interaction? (Score:2)
Confounding factor (Score:2)
Driving professions in general spend a lot of time on roads where there is a higher level of particulate and other pollution so based on that premise alone you would think they would be on the higher side of the risk curve.
Chess Players vs Bridge Players? (Score:2)
You would expect the same thing with tournament chess players who spend hours working hard at trying to calculate and visualize move possibilities. The process has something in common with navigation. It does involve pattern recognition also, but there is a strong element of navigation.
An interesting comparison would be with tournament bridge players who calculate but probably don't visualize in the same way. (Can't say for sure as I have only played bridge a few times, years ago.)
The hypothesis would be