In old and even middle age, there are associations between physical health and both intelligence and education. This may occur because intelligence and/or education exert effects on lifestyle choices that, in turn, affect later health. Substance use is one aspect of lifestyle choice in young adulthood that could play such a role. The effects of intelligence and/or education on substance use could be direct and environmental, or indirect due to the presence of confounding genetic and shared family influences. We used the Minnesota Twin Family Study to distinguish these effects in males and females at age 24. In contrast to prevailing expectations, there were moderately negative direct nonshared environmental effects of both IQ and education on both smoking and drinking in both males and females. That is, controlling for positive family background effects in the form of both genetic and shared environmental influences, both higher IQ and greater education were associated with greater alcohol and nicotine use. These effects were accounted for by alcohol and nicotine use at age 17. Our results suggest that genetic and family-culture variables confound the associations between intelligence and education and substance use in young adults, rendering them indirect. Further research is needed to understand the roles of IQ and education in alcohol and nicotine use and their relative impacts on physical health throughout the lifespan.
KeywordsIQ; education; health-related behaviors; alcohol use; smoking; substance use; young adulthood In middle and old age, there are associations between physical health and both intelligence and education (Carlson, Fried, Ave, Bandeen-Roche, Zeger, & Brandt, 1999;Deary, Whalley, Batty, & Starr, 2006;Gottfredson & Deary, 2004;Malmstrom, Wolinsky, Andresen, Miller, & Miller, 2005;Tabbarah, Crimmins, & Seeman, 2002), but how these associations develop is not understood. Physical health problems are major sources of economic expense, anxiety, and deterioration in quality of life. Understanding the ways in which intelligence and education contribute to physical health would be an important epidemiological advance, and might lead to new approaches to help people better manage their own health, leading to more effective disease prevention and reduced medical care costs.One possible reason for the associations between physical health and intelligence and education is that intelligence and/or education may act to support lifestyle choices and the development of habits that over time maintain or undermine physical health. Education is generally the Corresponding author: Wendy Johnson, c/o Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota -Twin Cities, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455, 952-473-1673, wendy.Johnson@ed.ac.uk.
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Author ManuscriptIntelligence. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 November 1.
Published in final edited form as:Intelligence. 2009 November 1; 37(6): 613-624. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2008.12.003.
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