Higher IQ reduce Schizophrenia risk?
A paper written by Kenneth Kendler of Virginia Commonwealth University shows how higher IQ is linked to a low risk to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is severe. It involves symptoms like abnormal social behavior, paranoid delusions, and auditory hallucinations. Emotional trauma, drug use, and mainly genetic factors cause schizophrenia. “If you’re really smart, your genes for schizophrenia don’t have much of a chance of acting,” Kendler said in a press release. 1.2 million Swedish men’s IQ scores were analyzed.
They were 18-20 years old and their IQs were measured between 1979-1995. Schizophrenia related hospitalizations were tracked from 1986-2010. The team discovered there was a connection between IQ and a schizophrenia diagnosis. “What really predicted risk for schizophrenia is how much you deviate from the predicted IQ that we get from your relatives,” Kendler explained. “If you’re quite a bit lower, that carries a high risk for schizophrenia. Not achieving the IQ that you should have based on your genetic constitution and family background seems to most strongly predispose for schizophrenia.”
