ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2016
Early-Life Intelligence Predicts Midlife Biological Age.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association of telomere length with general cognitive trajectories: a meta-analysis of four prospective cohort studies.Neurobiology of aging · 2018Pooled it
- Study of 300,486 individuals identifies 148 independent genetic loci influencing general cognitive function.Nature communications · 2018Pooled it
- Change in the Rate of Biological Aging in Response to Caloric Restriction: CALERIE Biobank Analysis.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2017Trial
- Longitudinal telomere length shortening and cognitive and physical decline in later life: The Lothian Birth Cohorts 1936 and 1921.Mechanisms of ageing and development · 2016Trial
- Cognitive Resilience and Vulnerability to Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Predictors Across Individual, Family, School, and Neighborhood Contexts.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Association between maternal glycohemoglobin in pregnancy and adult offspring cognition: results from the Transgenerational Effects of Adult Morbidity (TEAM) Study.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2025Article
- Intelligence and Dietary Habits: An International Study of Mensa Members.Journal of Intelligence · 2025Article
- EchoAGE: Echocardiography-based Neural Network Model Forecasting Heart Biological Age.Aging and disease · 2024Article
- The Association Between Grandchild Care and Biological Aging Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China.Innovation in aging · 2024Article
- Methylation of FKBP5 is associated with accelerated DNA methylation ageing and cardiometabolic risk: replication in young-adult and middle-aged Black Americans.Epigenetics · 2022Article
- Autistic traits are associated with faster pace of aging: Evidence from the Dunedin study at age 45.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2021Article
- Article
- Midlife Study of the Louisville Twins: Connecting Cognitive Development to Biological and Cognitive Aging.Behavior genetics · 2020Article
- The Importance of Childhood for Adult Health and Development-Study Protocol of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020Article
- APOE effects on cognition from childhood to adolescence.Neurobiology of aging · 2019Article
- Childhood IQ predicts age-38 oral disease experience and service-use.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2019Article
- Residential neighborhood greenery and children's cognitive development.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2019Article
- Instability in longitudinal childhood IQ scores of Guatemalan high SES individuals born between 1941-1953.PloS one · 2019Article
- Biological embedding of neighborhood disadvantage and collective efficacy: Influences on chronic illness via accelerated cardiometabolic age.Development and psychopathology · 2018Article
- Parental socioeconomic position and midlife allostatic load: a study of potential mediators.BMC public health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesEarly-life intelligence has been shown to predict multiple causes of death in populations around the world. This finding suggests that intelligence might influence mortality through its effects on a general process of physiological deterioration (i.e., individual variation in "biological age"). We examined whether intelligence could predict measures of aging at midlife before the onset of most age-related disease.
methodsWe tested whether intelligence assessed in early childhood, middle childhood, and midlife predicted midlife biological age in members of the Dunedin Study, a population-representative birth cohort.
resultsLower intelligence predicted more advanced biological age at midlife as captured by perceived facial age, a 10-biomarker algorithm based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and Framingham heart age (r = 0.1-0.2). Correlations between intelligence and telomere length were less consistent. The associations between intelligence and biological age were not explained by differences in childhood health or parental socioeconomic status, and intelligence remained a significant predictor of biological age even when intelligence was assessed before Study members began their formal schooling. DISCUSSION: These results suggest that accelerated aging may serve as one of the factors linking low early-life intelligence to increased rates of morbidity and mortality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.