Smoking, low IQ top cardio risk factors (Scotland)

Researchers in Scotland say lower intelligence was second only to smoking as a predictor of cardiovascular disease. The study, published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, quantified the associations of cardiovascular disease and nine risk factors, including cognitive ability assessed using a standard test of general intelligence. The researchers found the Top 5 risk factors predicting cardiovascular death were smoking, low IQ, low income, high systolic blood pressure and low physical activity. "It may also be worthwhile for health promotion campaigns to be planned with consideration of individual cognition levels," Dr. David Batty of the Medical Research Council in Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh said in a statement. Batty also noted intelligence may well be one important factor behind the place of social class as a fundamental determinant of inequalities in health. Batty and colleagues analyzed data collected for the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study - a population study investigating the influence of social factors on health. The researchers looked at data collected in 1987 of 1,145 men and women about age 55 and tracked for 20 years