Smarter kids live longer, study reports

The higher a child’s early IQ, the long she is likely to live—at least up to a point, the results of a new study suggest.The study...

The higher a child’s early IQ, the long she is likely to live—at least up to a point, the results of a new study suggest.

The study is based on data from 862 men and women followed since childhood from 1922 to 1986. All were deemed gifted by childhood IQ tests, with IQs of 135 or higher, the average being 151.

Dr. Laurie T. Martin and Laura D. Kubzansky of the Harvard School of Public Health report in the American Journal of Epidemiology that the higher these children’s early IQs were, the longer they lived. However, the survival advantage began to plateau after a childhood IQ of 163, an intelligence level few reach.

As research has already linked IQ to mortality, the current study, according to Martin, was in part an attempt to see how far the IQ-health advantage extends. The researchers expected there to be a cutoff at which a high IQ no longer brought any extra health benefits.

And there was. But, Martin said, they were surprised at how high that cutoff turned out to be.

IQs of 163 or higher are not often seen; the average IQ score in the general population is 100 (by definition), and children who score above 130 are considered “gifted”.

The researchers found that, up to the cutoff point of 163, participants’ risk of dying during a given period decreased as their IQ increased; for example, those with a childhood IQ of 150 had a 44 per cent lower risk of death than those with an IQ of 135. —Reuters