If you’ve ever needed another reason to put down your smoking mittens and kick the habit of sucking on flaming butts, here’s another little nudge towards a smoke-free lifestyle.  According to a survey of Israeli military recruits cited in the journal Addiction, those who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day are dumber than non-smokers.  Non-smokers had an average IQ of 101, light smokers had an average IQ of 98, and pack-a-day or more smokers had an average IQ of 90.

Most interestingly, this effect was seen even in families.  In sets of siblings in which one smoked and one didn’t, the nonsmoker still had a significantly higher IQ, so it’s not a case of smokers just being dumber than non-smokers due to some genetic or environmental fluke.  Smoking has a lot of physical risks associated with it; maybe the chemicals in cigarettes negatively harm brain functioning by cutting off oxygen and clogging the brain with tar?

Tags: smokers dumber than non-smokers, non-smokers have higher IQs than smokers, surveys, unusual health news, smokers less intelligent than non-smokers, smoking, health risks of smoking, Addiction, unusual medical news

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