Kids With High IQs Grow Up to Be Vegetarians


FRIDAY, Dec. 15 (HealthDay News) -- As a child's IQ rises, his taste for meat
in adulthood declines, a new study suggests.

British researchers have found that children's IQ predicts their likelihood
of becoming vegetarians as young adults -- lowering their risk for
cardiovascular disease in the process. The finding could explain the link between smarts
and better health, the investigators say.

"Brighter people tend to have healthier dietary habits," concluded lead
author Catharine Gale, a senior research fellow at the MRC Epidemiology Resource
Centre of the University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital.


"We know from other studies that brighter children tend to behave in a
healthier fashion as adults -- they're less likely to smoke, less likely to be
overweight, less likely to have high blood pressure and more likely to take
strenuous exercise," Gale said. "This study provides further evidence that people
with a higher IQ tend to have a healthier lifestyle."

In the study, Gale's team collected data on nearly 8,200 men and women aged
30, whose IQ had been tested when they were 10 years of age.

"Children who scored higher on IQ tests at age 10 were more likely than those
who got lower scores to report that they were vegetarian at the age of 30,"
Gale said.

Vegetarians were more likely to be female, of higher social class and better
educated, but IQ was still a significant predictor of being vegetarian after
adjustment for these factors, Gale said.


One expert said the findings aren't the whole answer, however.


As the study showed, more women than men chose a vegetarian diet, Sandon
noted. "Other research shows that women in general will focus more on their health
than men. So, if they believe that a vegetarian diet will have health
benefits, they are more likely to follow it," she said.

Given these factors, "we cannot draw any solid conclusions from this
research," Sandon added.

Another expert agreed that a vegetarian diet is healthy.

"The evidence linking vegetarianism to good health outcomes is very strong,"
said Dr. David L. Katz, the director of the Prevention Research Center and an
associate professor of public health at the Yale University School of Medicine.

"Studies, for example, of vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists in California
suggest that they have lower rates of almost all major chronic diseases, and
greater longevity, than their omnivorous counterparts," Katz said. "Evidence is
also strong and consistent that greater intelligence, higher education, and
loftier social status -- which tend to cluster with one another -- also correlate
with good health."


SOURCES: Catharine Gale, Ph.D., senior research fellow, MRC Epidemiology
Resource Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton General Hospital,
Southampton, U.K.; Lona Sandon, R.D., assistant professor of clinical nutrition,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; David L. Katz, M.D.,
M.P.H, director, Prevention Research Center, associate professor of public health,
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Dec. 15, 2006, online
edition, British Medical Journal
Publish Date: December 15, 2006

On the topic of IQ, in monkeys it has found to be proportional to the amount of fruit in a particular monkey's diet. No reference tsk tsk.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

In the aging human primate, low B vitamin and elevated homocysteine status are associated with cognitive decline. Reference below, free paper.

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

I am all for fruit, love it. But I also love to see people avoiding deficiency states.

coconutcream, I read that article a while back and loved it!

And thanks for that article as well, arugula.

cool.I agree.

I went 100% raw in 10 grade.(end.)
The two or so years after that I got the best grades i'd ever gotton.I've proven that to mesyelf i guess.hah.


Thx for sharing

See you at the top!!

Avojamacada,

That is so interesting, that you found you got the best grades ever after you went 100% raw. I've been eating 100% raw with my two sons for four and a half years now. The eldest, who's sixteen, had ADHD and Learning disabilities when we first started. His schooladvise when he left primary school at age twelve was to become a plumbers assistant, an advise we did not heed, as he has bigger dreams.

Over the last four years, whilst eating raw, I've seen his grades go up and up. Even the teachers in his present school have commented. Unfortunately, at age sixteen he's very sensitive to peer pressure. He doesn't want to be the only kid at school who only eats apples for lunch so he has crisps and coke with his schoolmates which keeps him addicted to cooked food and makes it harder for him to enjoy raw food as much as his younger brother and I do.

At the moment he's trying really hard again to stay raw and I admire him so much for that. How old where you when you started eating 100% raw and how old are you now?

I hope my questions are not too personal,
Thanks,
Francis



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2007 01:05AM by Frannie.