This Profession Rarely Gets Alzheimer's--What We Can Learn From Taxi Drivers!

Researchers predict that the current rate of dementia will nearly double to 1 million new cases per year by 2060.

Currently, at age 55 the lifetime risk of dementia—up to age 95—is 42%. Risk stays low from ages 55 to 75 (about 4%) but dramatically increases after 75.

Since we don't know what causes it, we don't know how to prevent it.

Some people play brain games. Doing crossword puzzles mostly just makes you better at doing crossword puzzles.

But the way you use your brain may give us a clue.

There's been an interesting discovery about a practice that might prevent or delay dementia.

Why do taxi drivers rarely get Alzheimer's?

The hippocampus is the first brain structure that starts to deteriorate in Alzheimer's disease, causing poor memory and spatial disorientation. It's the part of your brain responsible for converting short-term memories into long-term ones and forming spatial memories, enabling us to navigate.

Taxi drivers were found to have significantly larger hippocampi. The longer they'd been driving the taxi, the larger the hippocampi. Their hippocampi seemed to be working overtime to keep track of where they were and, like a muscle used frequently, were getting bigger.​
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Here's what a study of nearly 9 million people found

The older you are when you die, the more likely you are to die from Alzheimer’s disease. Age is the major risk factor for the disease.

The dots above the red line are occupations in which people are relatively more likely to die from Alzheimer’s, and the dots below are occupations in which people are less likely to die from Alzheimer’s.

Ambulance drivers, whose occupation requires a lot of spatial work on a day-to-day basis, are here.

The average taxi driver seems to be dying on the young side--maybe due to being sedentary? Still, the Alzheimer’s rate is low. Taxi (and ambulance) drivers are below the curve.

Taxi and ambulance drivers have the lowest adjusted risk for death from Alzheimer’s disease of any of the 443 occupations studied.

Other transportation jobs — bus drivers (red dot), airline pilots (yellow dot), and ship captains (blue dot) — are all middle-of-the-road when it comes to Alzheimer's risk. These jobs generally require navigating predefined routes, which might not give the hippocampus much to do.

When it comes to vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia, taxi and ambulance drivers are on the high side--suggesting that the hippocampus effect is specific to Alzheimer's.

The takeaway.....

I've said many times, "I'm so glad I live in an era that has GPS in my car!" I've always been a little directionally challenged.

Given the information from this research, I'll be trying to rely more on my internal GPS.

Just know that if I'm late, I'm probably lost....🙄