Get smart -- intelligence
is the fountain of youth
By Kevin Nielsen
December 5, 2005 | Ever
since the start of time people have searched in vain
for the fountain of youth or the holy grail, which as
we learned from Indiana Jones holds the same powers.
There may be an easier way to live longer. No, it's
not a diet and no, it's not exercise.
It's intelligence.
The headline might seem like common
sense "smarter children may enjoy longer lives." It's
as simple as natural selection. The smarter people are
the ones who should live longer. When push comes to
shove pick up a book, watch the history channel or do
some extra counting with Sesame Street. It just might
let you live longer or at least your kids.
A recent study from the Harvard School
of Public Health found that as childhood IQ scores rose
so did longevity. The study followed children starting
in 1922 until 1986. The kids had IQ scores starting
at 135 with an average score of 151. Children with IQs
of 130 or higher are considered gifted.
IQ shouldn't matter that much in
how long someone lives unless they consistently make
better lifestyle decisions when it comes to risk factors.
The study did find that the socioeconomic factors of
the children weren't reflected in the findings.
In the study a child with an IQ of
150 had a 44 percent lower risk of death than those
with an IQ of 135. A lower risk of death is a pretty
broad term as the risk of death isn't very easy to quantify.
It does make sense though that smarter people would
have a lower risk of death because they probably wouldn't
be crushed by an airplane or fall off their roof.
Survival instinct isn't learned but
reducing risks should be part of the learning process
otherwise luck would factor greatly into the outcome
of the study. The difference between those with a higher
IQ and those with a lower IQ can't be that great biologically,
which lends itself to question the health lectures we
receive week after week from other scientists.
While exercise and diet obviously
affect people's health, the intelligence to choose how
to live one's life matters. If intelligence matters
then some people are automatically at a disadvantage.
It also means those crazy old people actually could
have been smart back in the day. Even though your great-grandma
might repeat the same stories if you talk to her for
more than 30 minutes, she obviously wasn't a stupid
person throughout her life if she has made it through
more than 90 years.
So if someone wants their kids to
live longer they should probably figure out how to up
their child's IQ when they're young. Everyone has different
ideas on how the brain works and matures but there are
a couple of ways that no one seems to argue.
The state of Georgia passed a law
almost 10 years ago giving a free compact disc of classical
music to expecting mothers so they could play it during
pregnancy and in the early years of the child's life.
This was based on the assumption that classical music
helps to form the brain and makes smarter children.
Also the sooner a child can read
the sooner they will be able to gain knowledge on their
own. Why wait for elementary school? Those two years
from age 3 to 5 could be spent at least whetting their
whistle when it comes to the alphabet, words or reading
for that matter. It just might result in a life lived
40 percent longer.
In the very least it would make people
smarter. The literacy rate is pretty high in the U.S.
but why don't we have an IQ rate? Everyone would be
better off if people were smarter, plain and simple.
Maybe we'd be better drivers, maybe people wouldn't
spend the better part of their 20s in college and maybe
there would be politicians who knew what they were doing.
The fountain of youth may not really
exist but if the smarter you are the longer you'll live
people should probably try to get smarter instead of
spending their time doing things that aren't very beneficial.
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