Intelligence And Lifespan Are Correlated

haidut

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Ray has written about this in several of his articles, and has mentioned it in a few of his interviews. One obvious explanation of the connection is that intelligent people make better lifestyle choices and this leads to better health and longer life. However, the more likely explanation is that, just as Ray has discussed, both intelligence and lifespan are functions of metabolism. Virtually all of the lifespan extending drugs and supplements I have posted about in this forum are strongly pro-metabolic as well.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... xpectancy/

"...A more surprising discovery is that there is a strong link between mortality and IQ: higher intelligence means, on average, a longer life. This relationship has been extensively documented by Ian Deary and his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh using data from the Scottish Mental Surveys. In 1932, the Scottish government administered an IQ test to nearly all 11-year old children attending school on a single day. More than sixty years later, focusing on the city of Aberdeen, Deary and colleague Lawrence Whalley set out to identify who from the cohort was still alive, at age 76. The results were striking: a 15-point IQ advantage translated into a 21% greater chance of survival. For example, a person with an IQ of 115 was 21% more likely to be alive at age 76 than a person with an IQ of 100 (the average for the general population)."

"...The link between IQ and mortality has now been replicated in upwards of 20 longitudinal studies from around the world, and has given rise to the field of cognitive epidemiology, which focuses on understanding the relationship between cognitive functioning and health. One major finding from this new field is that socioeconomic factors do not completely explain the IQ-mortality relationship. In one study, focusing on the Central Belt region of Scotland, researchers linked IQ scores for over 900 of the participants from the 1932 study to those participants’ responses on a national health survey conducted in the early 1970s. The researchers found that statistically controlling for economic class and a measure of “deprivation” reflecting unemployment, overcrowding, and other adverse living conditions accounted for only about 30% of the IQ-mortality correlation."
 

jaguar43

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According to Ray Peat, women would took progesterone during pregnancy had babies with IQ's around 120 points. So, I think prenatal progesterone is a important marker for intelligence. He calls it a "developmental trajectory" which he was influence by ballistic trajectory. He also accounts birth weight and head size with the trajectory.
 

DaveFoster

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According to Ray Peat, women would took progesterone during pregnancy had babies with IQ's around 120 points. So, I think prenatal progesterone is a important marker for intelligence. He calls it a "developmental trajectory" which he was influence by ballistic trajectory. He also accounts birth weight and head size with the trajectory.
That may partially explain the dropping IQ among Western nations due to increased estrogen levels.
 

jaguar43

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That may partially explain the dropping IQ among Western nations due to increased estrogen levels.

I am not sure if the IQ scores are dropping among western nations. Nor am I sure if estrogen levels are increasing among people. During the 50's and 60's Doctors gave pregnant women DES and other estrogenic components. That isn't happening as much today.
 

jaguar43

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Ray Peat has said that the long decline in SAT scores stopped in 1993.

In the 1950s, new diuretics came on the market, and millions of pregnant women took them. It was predicted that there would be an epidemic of brain damage as a result, and in fact the incidence of hyperactivity, attention-deficit, and other "minimal" brain damage disorders did rise during those years. After about 15-20 years, experiences such as the Thalidomide episode caused physicians to temper their enthusiasm for the use of drugs during pregnancy. The incidence of low birth-weight babies in the U.S. peaked around 1965, and 28 years later AIDS mortality in the US peaked. The rising curve had followed both the increase in radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing of large numbers of atomic bombs up to 1963, and the intense promotion of the new diuretics beginning in the early 1950s. The peak in AIDS mortality in 1993 came ten or twelve years after the long decline in SAT scores had stopped. (The most extreme declines in SAT scores had occurred among the brightest students, disproving the contention that the average score fell simply because more students were taking the tests.) The same prenatal damage which caused the extreme decline in SAT scores 18 years later (when the damaged babies reached that age) would have left many of the same individuals with weakened immune systems, which would fail prematurely, but at varying intervals, depending on the exposure to other factors.
The use of unleaded gasoline increased into the 1990s, and there was a corresponding decrease in tissue lead content, reflecting the smaller amount of lead being put into the environment. According to some reports, medical and dental x-ray exposures were declining during this period. Yet other factors, including dioxins and unsaturated dietary fats, were probably increasing.

Immunodeficiency, dioxins, stress, and the hormones
 

Beastmode

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Seeing this thread now. Ray lived for 86 years and seemed to keep his capacity to express his high degree of intelligence throughout.
 

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