Study shows smoking lowers your IQ

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1261490/Is-proof-smoking-lowers-IQ-Study-suggests-20-day-drastically-reduces-mental-capacity.html

[Sitting Coyote]

While the article you linked to claims that smoking lowers people's IQ, another way of interpreting the data is that people who naturally have lower IQ tend to smoke.  In order to demonstrate that smoking reduces someone's IQ, they'd have to get two groups of non-smokers who have identical IQs (on average), and have one group start smoking. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm not convinced smoking lowers people's IQ.  Just that there's some self-selection involved, and that dumb people take up the habit in the first place.

[miles]

I don't know if it was from here, but I remember someone linked to a doctor saying that smoking may actually be overall beneficial for some SAD dieters. Because it negated some ill-effects of metabolic syndrome, or suchlike.

[gep]

I don't know if it was from here, but I remember someone linked to a doctor saying that smoking may actually be overall beneficial for some SAD dieters. Because it negated some ill-effects of metabolic syndrome, or suchlike.

its because cigarettes can stimulate symphatetic nervous system (15-20 cigarettes a day) or block that system (40 or more)

[TylerDurden]

While the article you linked to claims that smoking lowers people's IQ, another way of interpreting the data is that people who naturally have lower IQ tend to smoke.  In order to demonstrate that smoking reduces someone's IQ, they'd have to get two groups of non-smokers who have identical IQs (on average), and have one group start smoking. 

The article took that into account. Indeed, in other sources, it states that the brothers it studied were identical twins, in some cases,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100401151746.htm

 thus proving that smoking did indeed lower IQ.

[Sitting Coyote]

The article took that into account...

They claimed that they took it into account, but based on the information they presented I am saying they did not.  Just because you study twins doesn't mean both individuals started with the same IQ.  They claim to rule out socioeconomics as a factor, but that doesn't mean they're left with samples of smokers and non-smokers who would otherwise have identical (on average) IQs.

[TylerDurden]

They claimed that they took it into account, but based on the information they presented I am saying they did not.  Just because you study twins doesn't mean both individuals started with the same IQ.  They claim to rule out socioeconomics as a factor, but that doesn't mean they're left with samples of smokers and non-smokers who would otherwise have identical (on average) IQs.

  I'm afraid that nurturist notions have been wholly discounted and that it has been shown that idential twins from the same backgrounds do indeed have similiar IQs:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1520-iq-is-inherited-suggests-twin-study.html

Now granted, a twin's IQ could be  stunted through leading a totally  different environment from its other identical twin(such as eating a much less healthy diet, or starving from malnutrition all the time for the first 3 decades of life etc.) But the study did compare smoking identical twins to their non-smoking identical twin counterpart within the same socioeconomic environment, so it's certain that smoking does lower one's IQ.

[invisible]

 I'm afraid that nurturist notions have been wholly discounted and that it has been shown that idential twins from the same backgrounds do indeed have similiar IQs:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1520-iq-is-inherited-suggests-twin-study.html

Now granted, a twin's IQ could be  stunted through leading a totally  different environment from its other identical twin(such as eating a much less healthy diet, or starving from malnutrition all the time for the first 3 decades of life etc.) But the study did compare smoking identical twins to their non-smoking identical twin counterpart within the same socioeconomic environment, so it's certain that smoking does lower one's IQ.

You can't assume something in a scientific study. There was no proof they had the same IQ unless it was actually tested even if research suggests identical twins have similar IQ. The smoking study should have taken that into consideration. It simply loses credibility for choosing to ignore that imo (though I have read before than identical twins who grew up in different homes in different countries even tend to share similar personality traits, so similar IQ would also make sense)

I wouldn't be surprised if smoking did reduce IQ but that's bad science in the experiment.

[TylerDurden]

The study also took that into account as they measured each twin's IQ exactly. If the IQs had been widely different and not directly linked to smoking, then the study would have mentioned that.

[chucky]

It's another propaganda against smoking. If the news would release some information about the benefits of smoking, the mindset towards the smoking wouldn't be so scary. But this is the way it is. Society is now anti-smoking and drinking even more which is actually the real killer. People who lived the longest life all smoked but never drank alcohol.

This website shows smoking from the other side http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/therap.htm . I don't know if this site belongs to the tobacco industry or not but it shows what the news channels are not allowed to tell.

I don't smoke.

[TylerDurden]

While smoking has been shown to have mild benefits for some unusual conditions(asthma?), in most cases it's been shown to be extremely harmful causing lung cancer/heart-disease etc. There has also been some study of the negative effects of smoking on grandchildren of smokers via epigenetics(nothing to do with passive smoking, the act of smoking simply fouls up the gene expression in the cells of the body so that children produced from such cells then develop increased tendencies to having more health-problems of various kinds).