How Your IQ Impacts Your Wealth and Health

Here's some good news for all you smarties out there: smart people actually live longer! Here's the summary from this MSN article:

While it's true that no one yet has figured out how to beat the Grim Reaper at his game, smart people appear to be better at holding him off longer.

Now many people may simply think that smart people are richer and because they are richer, they have better medical care, more access to preventative healthcare and drugs, eat better, etc. and that's what helps them live longer. Well, the article addresses that issue and makes the following comment:

People who track health statistics have made the claim that unequal access to health services by rich people and poor people makes all the difference. But if this were the case, then the gap should have decreased in England when the National Health Service was introduced. But this didn't come to pass. Nor have employer insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid decreased that gap in the United States.

Finally, after a LOT of back and forth, they come to their main conclusion:

The same smarts that help people attain high-status, high-pay jobs in the first place are also the tools that help people avoid making poor, life-shortening decisions. It's dumb to smoke, or to become obese, or to neglect to exercise, for example. High-status, wealthy people are less likely to do these things--possibly because they're smart enough to predict the future consequences, or because higher self-esteem gives them a greater incentive to invest in their health.

So while it's true that having a high IQ makes you more likely to have wealth and a higher-social-status job, it's making smart and healthy decisions--and not simply the status and savings--that help a person live longer.

Some interesting thoughts/discussions around these topics the past couple of days. If you're interested in this subject, read the full article -- it's fascinating. And you may want to read my post from yesterday titled Why the Rich Live Longer. It doesn't contain "the answer" to any of these questions, but it does add to the discussion.

In the end, the takeaway is that there's a connection between intelligence, wealth, and longer life. It seems that it's likely that one (or two) of these leads to the others, but we can't be sure. However, I'm trying to play it safe. I plan to grow my net worth and keep my mind sharp -- and hopefully that will lead to a longer, more enjoyable life. ;-)

Comments

[Matt Laswell]

I would suggest also that both financial success and longevity rely on at least one common skill: the ability to delay gratification. I've read studies in the past the claim that this ability correlates very highly with financial success. It's certainly intuitive that it would. It's similarly intuitive that delaying gratification would be useful in maintaining health.