Low IQ Linked To Dementia

Which means that high IQ people are LESS likely to become demented

Children with lower IQs are more likely decades later to develop vascular dementia than children with high IQs, according to research published in the June 25, 2008, online issue of Neurology. The most common type of dementia after Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia occurs when blood flow to the brain is impaired.

The study examined 173 people in Scotland who took a test of their mental ability in 1932 when they were about 11 years old and later developed dementia. This group was compared to one set of control participants of the same age and gender. For another group of controls, the researchers made sure that the cases and controls came from families where the fathers had similar types of occupations.

The people with vascular dementia were 40 percent more likely to have low test scores when they were children than the people who did not develop dementia. This difference was not true for those with Alzheimer's disease.

"These results point to the importance of reducing the vascular risk factors that can lead to strokes and dementia," said study author John M. Starr, FRCPEd, of the University of Edinburgh. "Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking."

Starr said the findings support the hypothesis that low childhood IQ acts as a risk factor for dementia through vascular risks rather than the "cognitive reserve" theory. This theory speculates that greater IQ and education create a buffer against the effects of dementia in the brain, allowing people with greater cognitive reserve to stay free of signs of dementia longer, even though the disease has started affecting their brains.

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Lesbianism linked to obesity

Heh!

Obesity is an epidemic, and lesbians are nearly twice as likely to be overweight than heterosexual women. Sarah Fogel, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, is using an extraordinarily successful, predominately lesbian weight loss group in Atlanta, as a model system for discovering how to target obesity in a lesbian population. Fogel is studying the group, and her findings are giving her a different view on weight loss. “All weight loss groups offer an environment of like-bodied people (overweight or obese), but this is the first group, to my knowledge, that has been developed around other personal and social issues,” said Fogel.

Adherence to a new lifestyle is often the most difficult barrier to overcome in weight loss. The Atlanta group, however, has had remarkable success in developing long-term change in its member’s lifestyles. “Perhaps the best representation of the group is to say that there are still several women in the group who were ‘founding members.’ They have been attending since October 2006 and continue to come even though a couple of them have reached their weight loss goals. The other side of this is that even the women who have not been able to lose what they want to lose keep coming . . . this is unheard of,” said Fogel. “It says volumes about the group.”

Fogel is trying to answer a difficult question: how do we understand obesity in different social contexts? Being overweight or obese can lead to a number of health problems, namely cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, so understanding how obesity develops in different populations is a pressing concern.

Fogel will study the group over a six-month period, both empirically and qualitatively. Using body mass index (BMI) and relative weight loss, she will put a number on the group’s success. She has already held focus groups in order to lend a deeper, more personal aspect to the study, and therefore weight loss.

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