Posted on 02/23/2010 11:38:41 AM PST by nickcarraway
Cigarette smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a person smokes, the lower their IQ, a study in over 20,000 Israeli military recruits suggests.
Young men who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day or more had IQ scores 7.5 points lower than non-smokers, Dr. Mark Weiser of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and his colleagues found.
"Adolescents with poorer IQ scores might be targeted for programs designed to prevent smoking," they conclude in the journal Addiction.
Slideshow: Celebrities Who Quit Smoking
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 note in their report.
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 investigators, 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 as 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
First/second/third hand smoke...and global warming. All the same type of scam.
OK, I’ll play. I bet I can show that US Marines have lower IQ’s than the US Air Force. Why? Because more ground pounders smoke than pilots.
Statistics can show anything.
This study is pure BS.
Inspite of what you have been told by the surgeon general, the under lying statistics in the study do not support that conclusion.
I am not suggesting by any means that smoking is a good thing. I just think that as bad as the ‘science’ is on this to say that it is CAUSAL is wrong
I notice they specify only cigarette smokers.
So, applying the current rules of agenda-driven “science”, this must mean that those of us that electively, but regularly, puff on fat, black Maduros are of course, off the charts Intels who can spontaneously levitate via sheer neuronal prowess.
If second hand smoke causes cancer, young smokers should be dying like flies and there should be no long time smokers.
It’s really pathetic to see smoking Nazis emerge from their shells on these threads.
they spend most of their time decrying government interference over our privates lives and laughing at such things as Michelle Obama’s crusade against fat.
(well, I laugh at that as well)
But confronted with someone smoking or the thought of someone smoking, they would gladly sign on to a law forbidding this anywhere. We’ve gone a long way down that ugly road already.
When I made a similar comment on another thread posting this study (it was posted yesterday), I was accused of something horrible.
I was accused of being a ... gasp ... smoker. I am not and never have been. I just hate the hyprocrisy of the smoking nazis.
Been smoking for 50 years (not bragging just stating a fact) but I did miss being a Mensa member by 2 points so I guess I am dumb..
Two of the most intelligent people I know, mother and son, both smoke like chimneys.
I clicked on this thread for one reason only. :p
statistically that is an inaccurate statement. anecdotal information is always nice but that is not what science is based upon. that is part of the problem of methodolgy with the surgeon general’s various reports. there is too much that is anecdotal ( eg no autopsy, man smoked for years, had emphysema (diagnostic)-—conclusion most likely died of lung cancer.)
I do not want to pick a fight. I am just tired of the folks in the nanny state deciding ( and this started years ago) that doing good quality science and research isn’t as important as the agenda.
And just what clinical trials have you either read or been involved in that dealt with lung cancer and its causality. Your wife the pharmacist, I am sure, is a nice lady. Still has nothing to do with how the statistics were dealt with.
Smoke em’ if you got em’ and ping me in 10 years.
We’ll go from there...
If you noticed I do not advocate smoking. Moreover I am not a smoker. I just hate the way bogus science is used to promote the nanny state agenda. Oh and by the way, nice answer to my question ——kind of like the science in question
And all you have done is to cite the very reports I have complained about. Kind of like the CRU and Phil Jones claiming that their reports prove global warming and only idiots disagree.
My complaint is with the methodology. They make wild ass estimates based on world population and total deaths. They take anecdotal information as to cause of death ( since most bodies are not autopsied). I could go on and on but I can tell you don’t care about the science you care about the agenda.
And by the way which of those clinical trials of yours were for lung cancer causality??? Oh yeah still waiting for that answer
You appear to have superior knowledge of oncology, epidemiology, biostatistics, protocols, etc. so I am going to consider myself defeated. All of these studies are bogus and comprised of wild assed guesses.
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Did you even read the titles of some of your cited sources??? Please don’t embarass yourself further. You still don’t understand the point. you merely have an agenda. That;s fine with me but don’t try and pretend that it is science ( Please go check your themometer now)
Makes sense. You’d have to be a fool to pay $50 for a carton of smokes these days.
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