ArticleJournal of epidemiology and community health2007
Childhood IQ in relation to risk factors for premature mortality in middle-aged persons: the Aberdeen Children of the 1950s study.
Article in Journal of epidemiology and community health, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 154 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cognitive Reserve and the Risk of Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2017Pooled it
- Educational attainment and obesity: a systematic review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2013Pooled it
- Cognitive function in childhood and cardiovascular disease risk factors up to 6 decades later: Pooled data from two birth cohort studies.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Intelligence and Dietary Habits: An International Study of Mensa Members.Journal of Intelligence · 2025Article
- The association between adult-life smoking and age-related cognitive decline in Danish men.PloS one · 2025Article
- Repetitive thought, cognition, and systemic inflammation in the midlife in the United States study.Psychology & health · 2024Article
- The association between cognitive ability and body mass index: A sibling-comparison analysis in four longitudinal studies.PLoS medicine · 2023Article
- High Morphine Use Disorder Susceptibility Is Predicted by Impaired Learning Ability in Mice.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- Pre-pandemic cognitive function and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: cohort study.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2021Article
- Disrupted parahippocampal and midbrain function underlie slower verbal learning in adolescent-onset regular cannabis use.Psychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Intelligence, health and death.Nature human behaviour · 2021Review
- The Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire (ELMEQ): Responses and non-musical correlates in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.PloS one · 2021Article
- Educational differences in labor market marginalization among mature-aged working men: the contribution of early health behaviors, previous employment histories, and poor mental health.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Psychosocial factors and hospitalisations for COVID-19: Prospective cohort study based on a community sample.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2020Article
- The long arm of childhood intelligence on terminal decline: Evidence from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921.Psychology and aging · 2020Article
- Adolescent Substance Use and the Brain: Behavioral, Cognitive and Neuroimaging Correlates.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020Article
- Longitudinal associations between hearing loss and general cognitive ability: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.Psychology and aging · 2019Article
- Article
- Childhood IQ and survival to 79: Follow-up of 94% of the Scottish Mental Survey 1947.Intelligence · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveA series of studies have shown an association between high childhood IQ scores and reduced rates of total mortality in adulthood. Several mechanisms have been advanced to explain these relationships, including mediation via established risk factors. This study examines the association between childhood IQ and a range of established physiological and behavioural risk factors for premature mortality in adulthood. DESIGN, SETTING AND
participantsIn 1962, 12,150 children took part in a school-based survey when their IQ scores were extracted from educational records. When re-surveyed forty years later (n = 7183; 63.7% response), they self-reported information on risk factors for premature mortality (smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, obesity, height, hypertension and diabetes). MAIN
resultsIn sex-adjusted analyses based on an analytical sample of 5340 (2687 women), higher childhood IQ scores were associated with a decreased prevalence of ever having smoked regularly in adulthood (OR(per SD increase in IQ) (95% CI): 0.77 (0.73 to 0.81)), heavy alcohol consumption (0.89 (0.84 to 0.94)), obesity (0.78 (0.72 to 0.83)) and overweight (0.86 (0.81 to 0.91)). Higher IQ scores were similarly related to a reduced prevalence of short stature and higher rates of smoking cessation in smokers; effects that were stronger in women (p value for interaction: < or =0.04). Adjusting for indicators of early and, particularly, later-life socioeconomic circumstances led to heavy attenuation of these gradients with statistical significance at conventional levels lost in most analyses.
conclusionsThe IQ-risk factor gradients reported may offer some insights into the apparent link between high pre-adult IQ and reduced mortality rates.
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Registered trials
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