Smokers have lower IQs
SMOKERS have lower IQs than non-smokers and the more they smoke, the lower their IQ, according to a study of over 20,000 Israeli military recruits.
Dr Mark Weiser and colleagues from Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer found that young men who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day or more had IQ scores 7.5 points lower than non-smokers.
"Adolescents with poorer IQ scores might be targeted for programmes designed to prevent smoking," they conclude in the journal Addiction.
While there is evidence for a link between smoking and lower IQ, many studies have relied on intelligence tests given in childhood and have also included people with mental and behavioral problems, who are both more likely to smoke and more likely to have low IQs.
To better understand the smoking-IQ relationship, the researchers looked at 20,211 18-year-olds recruited into the Israeli military.
The group did not include anyone with major mental health problems because these individuals are disqualified from military service.
According to the researchers, 28 per cent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around three per cent said they were ex-smokers and 68 per cent had never smoked.
The smokers had significantly lower intelligence test scores than non-smokers and this remained true even after the researchers accounted for socioeconomic status measured by how many years of formal education a recruit’s father had completed.
The average IQ for non-smokers was about 101 while it was 94 for men who had started smoking before entering the military.
IQ steadily dropped as the number of cigarettes smoked increased from 98 for people who smoked one to five cigarettes daily to 90 for those who smoked more than a pack a day.
IQ scores from 84 to 116 are considered to indicate average intelligence.
The researchers also compared IQs for 70 pairs of brothers in the group in which one brother smoked and the other did not. Again, average IQs for the non-smoking sibling were higher than for the smokers.
The findings suggest that lower IQ individuals are more likely to choose to smoke, rather than that smoking makes people less intelligent, Weiser and his team conclude.
- China Daily
Published Feb 25, 2010
Comments (9)
since they are talking bulls here, likewise, i say the good effects of smoking?? poison fights poison i say, the cigs poison cleanse the stomach, colon,of damaging cancer causing bacterias but ironically smoking cigs shall give you other cancers, so you decide, like they say 'there's no free lunch'
so 10 person who live longer and 6 of them is a smoker we can say that smoking makes u live longer
if that is the case, why waste millions of dollars doing all the anti-smoking campaign? just banned the selling of tobacco.
but then again, if that is the case, how can the country replace the loss of income from the tax arising from the sales of tobacco?
where do our politicians get their extra income for kopi?
it's contradicting isn't it? on one hand you promote not to smoke, on the other hand, you're saying smoking is bad. then why not ban it???
well... this is malaysia for you... you malaysians out there, be proud!!
malaysia boleh!!!
p/s: but dutch is the best!!