Heavy-drinking men have lower IQs; educated women drink more, studies say

A Swedish study suggests that men who drink heavily tend to score lower on IQ tests — while for women, the pattern may run in the opposite direction.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet studied 49,321 Swedish men born between 1949 and 1951, linking conscription-era cognitive test scores with data on tobacco use, health conditions, and alcohol consumption. The result: lower-IQ men were the heavy drinkers, while men with higher scores tended toward healthier lifestyles.

Sara Sjölund, a student at the institute and corresponding author of the study, said this was the first study to find "consistent" links between "cognitive ability and alcohol-related problems." The team cautioned, however, that factors like economic background and social status could also influence how much people drink.

For women, the picture looked different. A London School of Economics study concluded that the more educated women are, the more likely they are to drink alcohol on most days — and to report problems from their drinking patterns.

Two correlations, then — and neither is a prescription. Drinking more doesn't make anyone clever, and the studies describe populations, not individuals.