Source: Reuters
Date: 2010-02-23
Author: SOURCE: Addiction, February 2010.

Cigarette smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a
person smokes, the lower their IQ, a study in over 20,000 Israeli
military recruits suggests.

Young men who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day or more had IQ
scores 7.5 points lower than non-smokers, Dr. Mark Weiser of
Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and his colleagues found.

"Adolescents with poorer IQ scores might be targeted for
programs designed to prevent smoking," they conclude in the
journal Addiction. . . .

To better understand the smoking-IQ relationship, the
researchers looked at 20,211 18-year-old men recruited into the
Israeli military. The group did not include anyone with major
mental health problems, because these individuals are
disqualified from military service.