IQ level may indicate longevity: Study

Glasgow, March 9: A Scottish research has made an amazing discovery that links mortality to intelligence quotient (IQ). The faster you react, the more are your chances to live longer.

Not only intelligence but responding quickly, too, can indicate the longevity of your life, researchers claimed.

Researchers from Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Glasgow zeroed in on 7,414 people over 20 years. The results were measured adjusting the factors like smoking and drinking.

“Our results suggest that 'choice' reaction time, a moderately high correlate of intelligence, is an important risk factor for death from all causes, including cardio- vasculardefine disease,'' the researchers said.

Tracking the participants since mid 80s, the researchers measured their reaction time with an electrical device, which had five numbered buttons on it, and was fitted with a screen. The participants were asked to press a button when they saw a number. The time they took to press the button calculated their reaction timing.

They found that men and women who were lethargic in responding or reacting were 2.6 times more likely to die prematurely than those who were fast.

This way, the researchers concluded that reaction times are a measure of how well the various bits of the body system work with each other.

“It has been hypothesised that reaction time, as a measure of speed of the brain’s information-processing capacity, may be a marker for bodily system integrity,” researchers said. “This way, slower reaction times, or poorer information-processing ability, might be an indication of suboptimal physiological functioning, which may in turn be related to early death.”

The researchers even claimed that IQ was more accurate indicator of mortality than waist-hip ratio, physical exercise, alcohol consumption, BMI, and blood pressure.