Ten-year-old children who are intelligent are more likely to turn vegetarian when they become 30, says a new study, though researchers are unclear about vegetarianism's link to IQ scores.
British researchers, including senior research fellow Catharine Gale at England's University of Southampton, studied 8,170 people born in Britain in 1970, reported the online edition of health magazine WebMD.Participants took an IQ test when they were 10. Twenty years later, they were asked whether they were currently vegetarians. The vast majority said they weren't vegetarians, but 366 said they were.
Those with higher IQ scores at 10 were more likely to be vegetarians at 30, the researchers said in their study that appeared in the online edition of the British Medical Journal.
The difference in IQ was about five points, the study showed. There was no difference in IQ scores between strict vegetarians and semi-vegetarians who ate fish or chicken.
It's not clear how long participants had been vegetarians, or what relationship - if any - vegetarianism has to IQ scores, the researchers said.
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