Why do those with higher IQs live longer? A new study points to answers
B eing smarter as a child means you are more likely to live longer than people of lower intelligence, according to the most comprehensive study yet to look at the connection between IQ and longevity and that analyzed a sweeping range of causes of death, from injuries to dementia to heart disease.
Among the thousands of people studied, those in the top 10 percent of childhood intelligence were two-thirds less likely to have died from respiratory disease by age 79 than people in the bottom 10 percent. They were half as likely to have died from heart disease, stroke, smoking-related cancers, digestive diseases, and outside causes such as injury.
“The increased risk of dying earlier from many different causes is not just about low versus high IQ scores,” said Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh and the senior author of the paper. “The slight benefit to longevity from higher intelligence seems to increase all the way up the intelligence scale, so that very smart people live longer than smart people, who live longer than averagely intelligent people, and so on.”
The researchers, who published their study Wednesday in the journal BMJ, also found an association between childhood intelligence and a reduced risk of death from dementia and, on a smaller scale, suicide. Similar results were seen among men and women, except for lower rates of suicide, which had a correlation to higher childhood intelligence among men but not women.
