very strong claims: "Intelligence can predict mortality more strongly than body mass index, total cholesterol, blood pressure or blood glucose, and at a similar level to smoking4. But the reasons for this are still mysterious. That needs to change. Reducing health inequalities is a priority, and to do that we need to determine their causes." - Attila Csordas from Bookmarklet

Ummm... don't intelligent people not just take better care of their health? I mean, you have to be pretty stupid to and smoke, and drink much, and eat McDonalds all the time... or... ? - Egon Willighagen

Interesting link, I tweeted it. - Donnie Berkholz

mind over matter :o) - The Real sofarsoShawn

Notably not mentioned: fecundity. Number of offspring is negatively correlated with IQ scores http://is.gd/7A4u (sorry, couldn't find more recent literature--anyone's Google Fu stronger tonight?), and number of offspring is negatively correlated with age of death in most organisms (are humans the exception? I cannot find a published paper to support this; here's the best search I could come up with http://is.gd/7A7f). So if intelligent people have fewer kids, they should live longer, right? - Chris Lasher

Also as an aside, the most intelligent people I know have no kids (with a few exceptions). So in the game of life, being extremely intelligent is bad mark. :-( - Chris Lasher

I am certain that there is also a correlation between number of children and mortality rate. Most certainly 100 years ago, having a child would be one of the top 10 causes of death, although this is not my area of study and I am just guessing. So is it cause or effect? - Jim Hardy