4 ms·
When I read these headlines I wonder "Causation? Correlation?". Maybe it's addressed in the study but..... Is it that navigating with you brain is good to prev
by ShakataGaNai 2y ago
When I read these headlines I wonder "Causation? Correlation?". Maybe it's addressed in the study but.....
Is it that navigating with you brain is good to prevent Alzheimers? Or are you just more likely to die from something else as a cabbie. Statically speaking your more likely to die, than average, from a traffic related accident. Maybe the all the fumes cause something else terrible that kills you, etc.
It does seem logical to me that using your brain more could help offset these dementia related diseases. But it also seems like if that made a huge difference, we'd see statistically vastly more alzheimers in "low thought" jobs like retail cashiers and people who don't work/retire early vs say... collegiate professors.
- lupire 2y agoMay be a simple as being poor and not retiring makes you less likely to develop Alzheimer's.
- chrisbrandow 2y agoThe correlation alone provides evidence of something worth pursuing and understanding. They do have some possible causation when considering hippocampus development observed in taxi drivers in other studies.
- apsec112 2y agoThey adjust for overall lifespan in the study: https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-082194 https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-082194
- JamesBarney 2y agoMy guess is it's correlational. It's almost always correlational. Remember the knowing a second language reduced risks of dementia, turned out it was correlational. The real cause was under diagnosis in immigrants who were disproportionately more likely to speak a second language. Still worth investigating further but dollars to donuts it's not causal.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]