Intelligent People Are Heavy Drinkers, According To Studies

People discovered alcohol probably accidentally while eating overripe or rotten fruit. Fermentation of sugars results in the production of ethanol. Nonetheless, ethanol alcohol in these fruits is at a pretty low level of around 5 percent. This could compare to the alcohol in a light beer. While for example, the normal beer contains 4-6 percent of alcohol, wine 12-15 percent, and distilled spirits 20-95 percent./p>

Then, it was replaced by the production of beer and wine that had taken place for the first time in Mesopotamia. The distilled spirits are more “modern” as they were found in the Middle East or China at about 700 AD.

What’s interesting about drinking alcohol, though, is that it's thought to be the latest evolutionary novelty in the development of humans’ behavior and is a sign of stronger intellectual capacity and a recent study also confirms this.

This study was conducted at the London School of Economics on people aged 39. It revealed that women that had obtained higher educational degrees drank twice more on an everyday basis than the ones who had not studied at university.

Almost the same goes for men. The research found that educated ladies were 71 percent more predisposed to drink on most days. And educated men were 49 percent more likely to consume alcohol.

According to the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis posited by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, situations that didn't occur in the Pleistocene (when homo sapiens developed) are hard for our brain to handle particularly for the less intelligent. That's the case because general intelligence has evolved as a consequence of the need to solve evolutionarily new problems.

As previously mentioned the alcohol production appeared 10,000 years ago.

Dr. Kanazawa confirms there's a correlation between childhood level of intelligence (before the age of 16) and the regularity of alcohol drinking in these people’s 20s, 30s, and 40s. He analyzed information provided by the National Child Development Study (NCDS) in the United Kingdom. On the graph below, it's demonstrated that very bright children tested in the country grew up to consume more alcohol in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. In contrast to girls and boys who after being tested proved to be “very dull.” The link between childhood intelligence is classified into five “cognitive groups”: “very dull” – IQ < 75; “dull” – 75 < IQ < 90; “normal” – 90 < IQ < 110; “bright” – 110 < IQ < 125; “very bright” – IQ > 125

The most intelligent children consumed almost 80 percent more alcohol than the “very dull” as presented in the chart below.

The same goes for Americans – the brighter they were as kids, the more alcohol they consumed as teenagers. The graph below shows the findings of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) in the US.

The scientists took into consideration some external factors. They analyzed the social class of the kids and the education of the parents.

Even though intelligent individuals drink more, researchers came to the conclusion this is not related to their social status.

Neither has it anything to do with whether they had “important” jobs. It was their intelligence that made them consume more alcohol.

Another proof of this idea comes from Finnish researchers who examined 3,000 fraternal and identical twins to conclude that the one who first started using language—also would drink alcohol first and drink more as a teenager. Verbal skills are associated with social intelligence; that’s why more talkative twins also had more friends and were more likely to become involved in situations in which people drink.

Earlier speaking could also indicate the kid will have higher academic results later in life. However, obtaining higher degrees of education is linked to higher alcohol consumption. The authors of the study believe the reason is that intelligence is linked to curiosity and the passion for new experiences:

“Cognitive performance and reading abilities in childhood are related to higher stimulation-seeking tendencies.”, according to them.

Finally, it turns out that smarter individuals prefer drinking wine. A study examined the IQ of nearly 2000 Danish men and their drinking preferences from the 1950s until 1990s. The scientists concluded there exists a link between high IQ in young adults and drinking wine (not beer) when they grow older. Almost 40 percent of the men with the highest IQ scores and just 13 percent with the lowest, preferred wine. The results could be explained with the relationship between how well somebody’s paid, their level of education, social status, and intelligence.

Reference: I Heart Intelligence