Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

	Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's(theconversation.com)
	371 points by jader201 12 days ago \| 273 comments
	tl;dr: A 2024 study of 9 million U.S. death certificates found taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest Alzheimer's death rate of 443 occupations, while drivers on fixed routes (bus drivers, pilots) showed no such advantage — suggesting real-time navigation, not driving itself, exercises the hippocampus, one of the first brain regions Alzheimer's attacks. Related research links spatially complex environments and mentally demanding work to lower dementia risk, though whether screen-based spatial reasoning (GIS, cartography) confers similar protection remains untested.
	HN Discussion: ↓Taxi drivers die younger, so they don't live long enough to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's ↓Reverse causation: people with Alzheimer-resistant brains self-select into taxi driving ↓The headline overstates the effect; a 40% reduction doesn't make Alzheimer's rare ↑Curiosity about extending this analysis to other cognitively demanding activities like gaming or chess ↑Supporting context from prior research like London cabbies and The Knowledge study