Smart People Drink More
That old genius at the end of the bar? Turns out drinking’s in his genes. The Times Online reports on a study linking intelligence to heavy drinking:
Research has now shown a link between high childhood IQ and an adult enthusiasm for alcohol that leads in some cases to problem drinking.
…
This association is even stronger among women than among men. Research by Dr G. David Batty and colleagues at the University of Glasgow, published in the American Journal of Public Health, compared the mental ability scores of 8,170 British boys and girls at the age of 10 with their alcohol intake and any alcohol problems when they were 30.
Whereas most of the clever children grew up to drink as most people do, reasonably and moderately, the likelihood of developing a drinking problem if one were unusually bright increased 1.38 times in women and 1.17 times in men.
The study is mute, however, on the subject of the obviously and vastly superior intellect of alcohol-related bloggers.
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