Intelligent people live longer—the correlation is as strong as that between smoking and premature death. But the reason is not fully understood. Beyond simply making wiser choices in life, these people also may have biology working in their favor. Now research in honeybees offers evidence that learning ability is indeed linked with a general capacity to withstand one of the rigors of aging—namely, oxidative stress.
Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, has proposed the term “system integrity” for the possible biological link between intelligence and long life: in his conception, a well-wired system not only performs better on mental tests but is less susceptible to environmental onslaughts. Gro Amdam of Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences was intrigued by the idea and last year devised a way to test it in bees.
Honeybees are frequently used as a neurobiological model for learning—they can be trained, using positive or negative reinforcement, to retain information. In Amdam’s experiment, individual bees were strapped into a straw, where they learned to associate an odor with a food reward in a classic Pavlovian conditioning scenario. After only one or two trials, many bees learned to stick out their tonguelike proboscis in anticipation of a sugary droplet. Some bees took a little longer—as in humans, there are quick learners and slower ones.
To simulate aging, the same bees were then placed in plastic tubes and exposed to a high-oxygen environment, a metabolic stress test. All animals need oxygen to breathe, but an overload drives cells to churn out damaging free radicals that break down cell membranes and cause cells to commit suicide, triggering premature aging. The better learners tended to live longer during this ordeal—an average of 58.8 hours, as opposed to the poor learners’ average of 54.6—suggesting they have a more robust antioxidant system, which mops up destructive free radicals.
Amdam suspects that general stress resilience may explain why the quick learners lived longer. In the learning trials, the bees that could stand the stress of being in the straw were able to learn faster that the odor signaled a treat, and the same resilience allowed these bees to better withstand the stress of being in a high-oxygen environment.
For people, too, Amdam hypothesizes that the ability to handle stress could be a component of system integrity; better overall stress resilience may contribute to both higher IQ scores and longer life. And if scientists can unravel what underlies these biological differences, they might be able to alleviate inborn disparities. “There is an opportunity to help everyone live longer,” Amdam says.
This article was originally published with the title Old and Wise.
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17 Comments
Add CommentWell, son-of-a-gun. I knew reading this magazine was going to pay off in the long run. If this is true then I should still have a teenagers brain at 130.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the reading of an article is learning, which nearly anyone can do regardless of their intelligence level. Probably, a better measure to correlate to intelligence is your IQ.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes this model account for exceptions to the IQ rule? How does it explain people like Stephen Hawking, for example?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, Stephen Hawkings has ALS. He has outlived his prognosis by about 40 years and is still going.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps this brief article did not mention it, but this study may not correlate to intelligence at all. It may actually correlate with sensitivity to stress. The less sensitive to a stressful environment, the more a bee may learn in that environment and the more they may also resist environmental stresses of all kinds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems more speculative to associate intelligence to oxidative resistance, than to associate the ability to learn in a stressful environment and the same oxidative resistance.
This distinction needs to be controlled for before the hyperbolic title of the article has any merit whatsoever.
Sometimes things are a lot simpler than scientists make them out to be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest that smart people live longer for a very good reason.
Average life expectancy is calculated as a curve. It is made up of those who die young, who die not so young and who live very log (>100)
LOTS of people die young because of stupid actions. Driving, drugs, smoking, accidents, tripping over pavements etc.
when we take those out of the equation we are left with the smarter people and this inevitably raises the life expectancy.
Simple :-)
@Shoreline, when you talk about a certain factor conferring advantage you do it from the perspective that all other factors remain equal. The mechanism of this phenomenon isn't magic, it acts through specific pathways. It does not just fix any illness a person may have. It is much like saying, if quitting smoking increases life expectancy, then why do non-smokers still die in auto accidents?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSometimes... even smart people make mistakes...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink about the people you know!
Smart people do live longer, are happier, choose better friends, and with out question have better lives!!!!
Great point, wolfkiss. But this kind of speculation is just par for the course in writing about intelligence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSmoking is a terrible analogy for intelligence. Smoking is an observable, measurable phenomenon. "Intelligence" is a vague construct, with no consensus definition and too many confounds to be of much value in careful scientific work. It might get a researcher published or funded, but it doesn't contribute much to science.
I am not so sure you are right SocialScientist. Intelligence itself may not be measurable in a completely satisfactory way for pure Science to make much progress with it objectively, but comparative intelligence is a valid concept surely. If intelligence causes humans to live longer and if it then plays a role in our continuing evolution then that is scientifically very significant. The drivers of our evolution are always significant, be they our digestive advantages, female preferences, height or whatever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think HowardB is onto something here. In addition, more intelligent people (or at least those who appear more intelligent because they've had some scientific training) are more likely to respect empirically based medicine, seek sound medical advice for problems and actually follow that advice. I don't know what the statistics are, but I suspect that quack medicine causes lots of early preventable deaths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince IQ is an abbreviation for intelligence, your last sentence is silly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTotally wrong. To do something catastophically wrong, a person has to be fairly intelligent. Stupid people just can't think of all of the complex ways to really foul up. How many early radiology and nuclear physics researchers dies prematurely from radiation exposure? They were hardly stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI beg to differ ... perhaps many smart people will live longer as they know how to take care of themselves I also say that the dumber ones also live long too. Actually, from my personal observations people with only limited knowledge about life and everything around it commonly have a better and happier life because ignorance is bliss. They just don't worry about all the stuff I worry about. Even my parents say so, and compare people today with those that grew up 50yrs back .... as my Mom says: "we know too much and this is making us sick" ..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt boils down to leading a less strain filled life
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way has the final word been said on the definition of intelligence and IQ?
Intelligence has something to do with wisdom, but not everything: intuition is also important. Dr. Einstein found this out as many of his "intelligent" contemporaries fought his theories until the day they died.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article talks about the ability to learn tricks, which is the indicator of intelligence, but probably shouldn't have included the word "wise" which is something else altogether.
So, high IQ may indicate longevity, but not wisdom.
This article completely fails to discuss this topic at a scientific level. There is no legitimate test of "intelligence". IQ is a correlate of intelligence, it is not a direct measure. It can only be used to approximate a very specific form of intelligence principally based upon mathematical reasoning. What's more, the beauty of the IQ test is that scores are affected by a number of variables which are completely unrelated to "inborn intelligence". For christ's sake, it's been shown that kids can improve their IQ scores just by being provided with a more enriched educational environment!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat this really means is that the richer half of society is destined to have on average a higher measured IQ than the poorer half of society. What is more, the richer half also has a higher life expectancy!
You want to know why "smarter" people really live longer? The primary reason is that "smart" people are also "rich" people. Who also happen to be people with access to excellent nutrition (oh hey, that increases the lifespan, doesn't it?) as well as greater educational opportunities and careers which take less of a toll on the body. All of these factors are correlated. And we have known this for decades.
Where is the nuanced analysis in this article?
(Oh, and honeybee intelligence doesn't exactly generalize well with human intelligence. Nobody thought to mention this?)