I'm not much for reading the health section of the paper, or the health section of anything, but in a sickday induced boredom I wandered off the usual path...
I discovered an article in The New York Times entitled 'Low I.Q. Predicts Heart Disease'. I wasn't really surprised at the conclusion hinted by the title, but I was a little surprised that it was published with such a direct headline. People usually try to protect low intelligence persons from all the bad labels often associated with them: socioeconomic status, occupation, health risks, etc.
The article made a point that had occurred to me as I read the headline:
People with lower intelligence also are known to adopt less healthful behaviors — they smoke and drink more and are more likely to have a poor diet. It may be that people with low I.Q. have a more difficult time understanding complex health messages and don’t fully understand the long-term health effects of an unhealthy lifestyle.This seemed pretty straight forward to me, and the most likely correlation between the behaviors of those that test highly in I.Q. tests (educated, wealthy individuals usually) and the behaviors of those that don't.
The article, however, mentioned another possible theory:
It may also be that a high I.Q. is associated with better overall neurological and physiological “wiring,’’ meaning all the body systems, from brain to heart to liver to kidneys, function at a more efficient level.For instance, some studies suggest that people with high I.Q. also have faster physical reaction times.
Intriguing, no? The idea is that those that score better not only are smarter but everything in their bodies is working better making higher intelligence possible. This also makes sense to me in thinking of those in lower socioeconomic situations scoring lower as they do no have access to healthful options in many areas of their health and may not even know enough to care.
Take a peak at the article... It's interesting.
Even if it is in the Health section.
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