If your child is intelligent and has a higher intelligence quotient (IQ), then it’s more than just a matter of pride. It’s going to affect your young one’s longevity of life as well, according to the latest research. The study has found out that higher IQ in childhood is linked with a lower lifetime risk of major causes of death, which includes heart diseases, smoking related cancers, dementia and respiratory disorders. Lifestyle habits like smoking and drinking can also be an important component in effect of intelligence on differences in mortality, a research says.
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"The study confirms that intelligence test scores in childhood are significantly associated with subsequent mortality. Importantly, it shows that childhood IQ is strongly associated with causes of death that are, to a great extent, dependent on already known risk factors," said Daniel Falkstedt, Assistant Professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
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"Tobacco smoking and its distribution along the socioeconomic spectrum could be of particular importance here. It remains to be seen if this is the full story or if IQ signals something deeper, and possibly genetic, in its relation to longevity," Falkstedt added.
The study was published in journal The BMJ (British Medical Journal). The researchers from the University of Edinburgh analysed the link between intelligence test scores measured at an age of 11 and the primary causes of death in people up to age of 79. The inference drawn are based on the data collected from 33,536 men and 32,229 women born in Scotland in 1936, who underwent a validated childhood intelligence test at an age of 11 and who could linked to cause of death data up to December 2015.
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