NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Cigarette smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a person smokes, 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 programs 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, Weiser and his team noted.
To better understand the smoking-IQ relationship, the researchers looked at 20,211 18-year-old men 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 percent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around 3 percent said they were ex-smokers, and 68 percent 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.
Recruits aren't allowed to smoke while intelligence tests are administered, the researchers said, so it is possible that withdrawal symptoms might affect smokers' scores.
To address this issue, they also looked at IQ scores for men who were non-smokers when they were 18 but started smoking during their military service.
These men also scored lower than never-smokers, 97 points, on average) \"indicating that nicotine withdrawal was probably not the cause of the difference,\" the researchers said.
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.
(Reporting by Reuters Health, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
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.
That would have been my guess too. Wonder if the results for the smokers would change if they are allowed to smoke during the test.
Did anyone else notice that those who started smoking after they joined the military, had on average 1 IQ point LESS than those who had already started smoking before they joined?
Gooberman wrote:But how is this the fault of radical islam?
Where does it say that?
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Fern- it is often said that all sins and former transgressions are overlooked and forgiven by allah after the jihadist is martyred or otherwise serves the greater good of \"killing the infidel.\"
Alot of suicide bombers and terrorists have been seen boozing it up and hanging out at strip bars (all of which is haram- forbidden) just days before attacking. Why should smoking be any different? After all, it's all erased from allah's books after martyrdom.
As to smoking weed- that wasn't mentioned in the study I started this thread with.
Dunno why you bring marijuana up so often. Hrm...
. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"- Mao Zedong
so what we have so far is anecdotal evidence that islamists have a lower IQ based on the accounts that the militants were seen smoking.
what you've done TB, is take an unverifiable third hand account of a group's behaviour and pass it off as fact. you've also tried to link smoking to militant behaviour. this is both dangerous, and intellectually dishonest.
unless you have actual and verifiable testimonies of witnesses observing the behaviour in question, I can't even remotely accept it as truth.
aka: \"that's BS!\"
BTW: the fact that I bring up marijuana so often only happens when people try and pass off misinformation and simply bad articles without doing any actual research. It's a horrible way of going about the subject matter because it's misleading and intellectually dishonest.
ThunderBunny wrote:Alot of suicide bombers and terrorists have been seen boozing it up and hanging out at strip bars (all of which is haram- forbidden) just days before attacking. Why should smoking be any different? After all, it's all erased from allah's books after martyrdom.
Ever see that movie "Traitor"? Talks about that in it.
Ferno wrote:BTW: the fact that I bring up marijuana so often only happens when people try and pass off misinformation and simply bad articles without doing any actual research. It's a horrible way of going about the subject matter because it's misleading and intellectually dishonest.
I don't trust marijuana at all anymore, especially as the new breeds are so much more potent than those of my use [edit: freudian slip if ever saw one: should be "youth" - ahem]. Long term use is associated with poorer life and academic achievement. Many studies do show impairments in cognitive functioning and executive control. Others show changes in brain function and metabolism. And if you have a family history of schizophrenia, you should definately stay away from it.
But that being said, it is probably one of the safer and least disruptive drugs out there.
