{"id":26772,"date":"2010-09-16T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/gnxp\/?p=6504"},"modified":"2010-09-21T01:39:39","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T09:39:39","slug":"more-exercise-more-i-q","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.razib.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/16\/more-exercise-more-i-q\/","title":{"rendered":"More exercise = more I.Q.?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Uni_Freiburg_-_Philosophen_\"Interesting post by Gretchen Reynolds reviewing the evidence on exercise and intelligence<\/a>. The title is “Phys Ed: Can Exercise Make Kids Smarter?”, so this is definitely seen as something which is “actionable” in a public policy sense, especially in light of the increases in obesity among young people. Intuitively I think most people are going to agree with this in the United States. In fact, when you’re down with the flu or some other illness you are generally less productive (most of the films I’ve watched over the past three years have been when I’m ill since I can’t focus on difficult material), so there’s probably going to be a natural connection made between greater cognitive function with greater health.<\/p>\n

First, Reynolds\u00a0points to a study<\/a> which shows that:<\/p>\n

1) The most fit children are more intelligent than the least fit as adduced from psychometric tests<\/p>\n

2) The most fit children ‘had significantly larger basal ganglia, a key part of the brain that aids in maintaining attention and \u201cexecutive control,\u201d or the ability to coordinate actions and thoughts crisply.’ The researchers controlled for socioeconomic status and body mass index,<\/p>\n

A second study<\/a> indicated that the fit children had better working memory and greater hippocampal volume.\u00a0Finally, an earlier study<\/a> using data from Swedish conscripts showed that even among identical twins the fitter ones were more intelligent.\u00a0Note that the primary author was the same on the first two studies. Before commenting further how about looking at some tables and\/or figures from the papers?<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nThe first image has two tables from the first paper, the second two images are from the second paper, and finally, the last is from the last paper.<\/p>\n