High IQ link to being vegetarian

From: BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm

Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.

A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

Researchers said it could explain why people with higher IQ were healthier as a vegetarian diet was linked to lower heart disease and obesity rates.

The study of 8,179 was reported in the British Medical Journal.

Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm">More...

:popcorn:

going to post a popcorn smiley in the OP. Because of course just posting this is considered sanctimonious. In fact, just the word vegetable is considered sanctimonious if used on DU.

:9

Fresh fish and local chicken without hormones.

live in. Liberals generally have higher IQs than conservatives. Atheists generally have higher IQs than theists. Now we learn vegetarians generally have higher IQs.

a little slower than those who did in their forties? And what about vegans? And those of us who buy buttons at Walmart? And live in a state that dumped the smartest man in the Senate?

I have been for 37 years. I really feel good about it. I don't eat fish. I don't eat anything that was once a living, breathing creature with eyeballs and all that. Eggs are fair game though. I have my own chickens.

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& income correlates with iq.

& irrelevant to the point: in the us, vegetarians are more likely to be higher-income.

vegetarian diets don't raise one's iq.

By extension then, are you saying high IQ is linked to higher income?

The assertion you made was that income correlates with IQ (post #9). I fail to see that connection, but either way it isn't relevant to the premise of the article. And I am not convinced that diet has any measurable influence on IQ - a correlation does not imply a causal relationship.

Just curious...

I believe both the same amount.

Then there is the one name argument against the thesis...

But I don't want to invoke a psuedo-Godwin's law.

is a member of MENSA. We know a lot of high IQ folks. Every summer for the past 10 years we have attended a picnic of members in our area of that organization. We always see lots of burgers, dogs and ribs on the Q.

Than I could have been? Damn- I've heard that simply isn't possible!

(BTW, our other genetic line that didn't eat the raw brains didn't evolve very far)

met a lot of people of low intelligence in my life, but I have never met an unintelligent vegetarian/vegan. I don't think people of lower intelligence have the ability to analyze the concept of becoming a veg, much less go against American culture in order to become one. While vegetarians are not stupid, I have met some kind of crazy ones. :-)

Vegetarianism isn't making people smarter. This is a clear example of correlation without causality.

Do smart people eat more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Are you going to start/stop eating them based on the result?

Rather than vegetarianism making people smart. Like I posted, below, if you are smart you don't trust the meat sold in America, anymore.

a vegetarian if your IQ is higher.

:toast:

Hope this helps.

Very left-wing and have an IQ of 143, and I love my meat. Sorry folks.

Unless they are measuring the vegetarians against their own siblings, it doesn't mean anything. If they consistently get higher scores than their siblings, it may mean something. Otherwise, it's just a correlation that doesn't mean what some vegetarians may fantasize it means.

In all likelihood, vegetarians come from families that have higher IQs, better nuitrition, and better economic conditions than do the general public. It is merely evidence that families which produce vegetarians tend to be families whose IQ is higher than the norm. The reasons likely have nothing to do with the vegetarian eating and everything to do with the families which are most likely to produce vegetarians - better educated, better economics, and better gene pool to begin with.