Tag: Alzheimer’s

In 2024 I blogged about a study that found the lowest incidence of Alzheimer’s-related mortality among ambulance and taxi drivers. At the time I noted that the study had a bunch of caveats and was reluctant to draw conclusions; as I wrote, “this is a long, long way from being able to say, for example, that driving a taxi prevents Alzheimer’s.” Nevertheless, last week The Conversation published a piece by engineering professor Hatim Sharif, who has no qualms drawing those conclusions from that 2024 study. Said piece is making the usual rounds, but grains of salt by the truckload are advised. As one commenter on MetaFilter says, “the causal claim is doing more work than the data can support.”

Previously: London Cabbies’ Unique Brains May Help Alzheimer’s Diagnosis; Jobs Requiring Spatial Memory and Navigation Associated with Low Alzheimer’s Mortality Rates.

A population-based study suggesting that people in jobs that require real-time spatial processing—taxi and ambulance drivers—have the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s-related death comes with a bunch of caveats and is reluctant to draw a direct correlation. Per Euronews, people good at spatial processing may be at lower risk regardless of whether they use that skill driving ambulances and taxis. Also:

Independent researchers pointed to a few of those factors, including the fact that the taxi and ambulance drivers in the study died on average around ages 64 to 67, while Alzheimer’s onset is typically after age 65.

Further, few of the drivers were women, who are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than men, and the analysis didn’t consider genetics or include scans that could show any changes to the brain as a result of their jobs.

So this is a long, long way from being able to say, for example, that driving a taxi prevents Alzheimer’s.

Previously: London Cabbies’ Unique Brains May Help Alzheimer’s Diagnosis.