Larger hippocampus may protect Taxi drivers from Alzheimer’s

BMJ study looked at 443 occupations

In a study of the human brain and Alzheimer’s disease, Taxi drivers were found to have “significantly larger hippocampi” than more than 400 other occupations studied, according to a Dr. F. Perry Wilson in a recent video.

“The Taxi drivers had significantly larger  hippocampi, and the longer they had been driving the Taxi, the larger the hippocampi were,” Wilson notes.

The hippocampus, which is impacted in persons suffering from the brain disease Alzheimer’s, is the area of the brain which helps human beings keep track of their spatial location.

“The conclusion was straight-forward – these guys’ hippocampi were working overtime to keep track  of where they were in the sprawling city, and, like any muscle used frequently, were getting  bigger as a result. These results could also mean that people with naturally larger  hippocampi are more likely to end up as Taxi  drivers.”

So, if Alzheimer’s disease starts in the Hippocampus – would people  with really strong hippocampi be protected from Alzheimer’s disease? That’s  the subject of this paper, appearing in the British Medical Journal.

“This paper is huge, encompassing 8,972,221individuals with one thing in common: all  of them died in the US between January 1st  2020 and December 31, 2022 – and all had an  occupation listed on their death certificate. 

“Taxi drivers appear and ambulance drivers,  another group that needs to do a lot of spatial relations work on a day-to-day basis, are here. The bad news is that the average taxi driver seems to be dying on the young side – a mean  age below 70. But even accounting for that, Alzheimer’s rate is still fairly low.  Adjusting for the relationship between age  and Alzheimer’s, as well as some other  factors like sex, race, and educational  attainment) yields this graph – we still see  Taxi (and ambulance) drivers below the curve.”