Kognitív epidemiológia – Az intelligenciaszint prospektív összefüggése a szomatikus és pszichiátriai betegségrizikóval

Cognitive epidemiology is the science of the relationship between intelligence and health. Modern studies of cognitive epidemiology, often with samples of several hundreds of thousands of individuals, have revealed that higher premorbid intelligence is associated with a lower risk of virtually all of mental illnesses and psychiatric problems. Higher premorbid intelligence is also associated negatively with the incidence of mortality, circulatory illness, metabolic illness, poor health behavior and many diseases of lower epidemiological significance, but its relationship to respiratory illness and nonsmoking related cancers is weaker or nonexistent. Indicators of adult socioeconomic status do not mediate the association between intelligence and mental illness, but they do partially mediate the relationship with somatic illness and mortality. Studies with special designs – twin control studies, pseudo-experimental studies and molecular genetic studies using Mendelian randomization – suggest that the relationship between intelligence and health is heavily mediated by genetic factors, but somatic health may be modestly but causally improved by better social status as a consequence of higher intelligence. © 2021 Szerző(k)