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Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

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Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#61

Post by coldtea »

cortic wrote: post #30

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.

Ah, the typical cheap HN reaction to a paper, along with "correlation is not causation", and as usual, for things already factored in into it.

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#62

Post by [deleted] »

pryelluw wrote: post #21
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had taxis long before GPS. When I was in my early 20s I had a job delivering pizza. I very quickly learned the delivery area, I knew pretty much every street and alleyway and shortcut to get from one place to another. Much smaller than London but I think the human brain is very good at remembering routes and where things are in an area, as this would have been an evolutionary advantage (go out hunting and be able…

Same. First thing they had me buy was a map book with all the local neighborhoods. The map on the wall helped get shortcuts from others. This is where I learned the difference between the different kinds of shortcuts. Some saved time, others distance, and some even potholes. It was a fun time.

[deleted]

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#63

Post by [deleted] »

OptionOfT wrote: post #27
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had taxis long before GPS. When I was in my early 20s I had a job delivering pizza. I very quickly learned the delivery area, I knew pretty much every street and alleyway and shortcut to get from one place to another. Much smaller than London but I think the human brain is very good at remembering routes and where things are in an area, as this would have been an evolutionary advantage (go out hunting and be able…

My 2019 car had the cardinal directions in the mirror (N, NE, E, ES, S etc). My 2025 does not anymore. I hate it. I think it helps to get that baseline of orientation, and then you look at the street numbers, and it all starts to come together.

[deleted]

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#65

Post by dinfinity »

cromka wrote: post #57
cortic wrote: post #30

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.

" (...) 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."

Yep.

"For each occupation, we first calculated the percentage of deaths due to Alzheimer’s disease and the mean age at death in years (ie, average life expectancy). We plotted the association between these two variables, with each observation reflecting a single occupation. The purpose of this analysis was to illustrate the need to account for the person’s age at death since the risk of Alzheimer’s disease rises with age and therefore Alzheimer’s mortality would naturally be lower in occupations with a lower life expectancy."

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#66

Post by specproc »

cortic wrote: post #30

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.

Studies typically use regression to account for stuff like that. CBA to look at the article, but I bet any money that's controlled for.

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#67

Post by smt88 »

wilburx3 wrote: post #38
TacticalCoder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting but why do taxi drivers have a job that lowers life expectancy? Is it because they're sitting too much? Or because they're inhaling CO from cars too much? Or staying inside (the car) too much? Or is it just stressful? For from the look of it it doesn't look like an exceptionally hard job (btw a brother of mine did years of "VTC": "Vehicule de Tourisme avec Chauffeur" , basically high-end taxis…

Getting stabbed in the neck by filthy street urchins.

Probably not smart to post something like this on the same message board you’re using to get a job

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#68

Post by yfontana »

bpodgursky wrote: post #36
jmcgough wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of people with Alzheimer's carry at least one APOE ε4 allele. However , a full quarter of the population carries that mutation, and most carriers never go on to develop Alzheimer's. Lifestyle matters a lot here. This kind of misdirection is not helpful for educating people on changes they can make now to reduce their risk, rather than waiting for a silver bullet. Alzheimer's research is well-funded in the US as…

To the extent that lifestyle helps, which is not zero, you need to exercise. "Become a cabbie" is NOT an intervention that is going to help whatsoever.

> "Become a cabbie" is NOT an intervention that is going to help whatsoever.

How about promoting spatial awareness and reasoning exercises (which is the actual suggestion of the article)?

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#69

Post by yfontana »

Something interesting that the original study looked at, but isn't mentioned in the linked article: this effect was not observed for non-Alzheimer's dementia deaths. There seems to be something specific to spatial reasoning and Alzheimer's.

Re: Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

#70

Post by inglor_cz »

id wrote: post #41
TacticalCoder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting but why do taxi drivers have a job that lowers life expectancy? Is it because they're sitting too much? Or because they're inhaling CO from cars too much? Or staying inside (the car) too much? Or is it just stressful? For from the look of it it doesn't look like an exceptionally hard job (btw a brother of mine did years of "VTC": "Vehicule de Tourisme avec Chauffeur" , basically high-end taxis…

Because it doesn't pay very well. Being affluent increases life expectancy.

1. They are hardly in the bottom quintile, where the income effect is large enough that it could actually shave 7 years off their life. I'd expect nightly work, irregular sleep patterns, too much fast food and maybe a higher frequency of smoking to do their part.

2. The original study didn't just study taxi drivers, but also ambulance drivers. I doubt that their life expectancy is that much lower.

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