Number one risk of heart disease is smoking. Number two is . . .

[Richard D]

. . . really surprising:


Low IQ Among Strongest Predictors of Cardiovascular Disease -- Second Only to Cigarette Smoking in Large Population Study

ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — While lower intelligence scores -- as reflected by low results on written or oral tests of IQ -- have been associated with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease, no study has so far compared the relative strength of this association with other established risk factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. Now, a large study funded by Britain's Medical Research Council, which set out to gauge the relative importance of IQ alongside other risk factors, has found that lower intelligence scores were associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and total mortality at a greater level of magnitude than found with any other risk factor except smoking.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209200754.htm

[ParkieDem]

1. Not all that surprising.

If you don't know that eating McDonald's 3 times a day will clog your arteries, you're probably going to keep doing that for a while.

[Poll_Blind]

2. Ya, close to something I was thinking. There's no direct correlation between one...

...and the other (i.e. low IQ doesn't cause heart disease), but it makes them more susceptible to lifestyle choices which may have adverse effects such as that.

PB

[salvorhardin]

6. There's probably an external driver

My bet: Low socio-economic status drives both low-IQ and heart disease risk factors.

[hlthe2b]

3. Low IQ is apparently "interacting" with other known risk factors...

so that those with lower IQ are not only more likely to continue risk behaviors (smoking, high fat diet, sedentary lifestyle, etc., etc), but perhaps to do them longer and more frequently... No real surprise, but it does have implications for disease intervention...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Bizarre Japanese blood pressure ad... seemingly extolling the

virtues of high blood pressure... sort of... if blood makes you queasy pass on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Bf0YDDGhI

[Happyhippychick]

5. Wow. So a smoking republican is in both slots?