People with a larger head size also have larger brains and are more likely to have higher IQs, a study finds.
People born with larger heads are more intelligent, according to the results of a large study.
Head size — along with greater brain volume — is also linked to having a more successful future.
Those with larger heads are more likely to go on to higher education.
This is probably because children with greater head size have higher scores on tests of verbal and numerical reasoning.
Head size and intelligence study
The findings come from the UK Biobank study, which is following half a million Britons.
Their physical and mental health is being monitored and connections to their genes are being analysed.
The research has been running for over 10 years.
The findings of the study underline the link between health and intelligence.
People who are taller and have a larger head size and, therefore, larger brains are also more likely to be healthy, the genetic study found.
Smarter people had a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s diabetes and other diseases.
Dr Saskia Hagenaars, the study’s first author, said:
“The study supports an existing theory which says that those with better overall health are likely to have higher levels of intelligence.”
Dr Stuart Ritchie, who co-authored the study, said:
“This study tests whether genes that are linked to mental abilities and educational attainment are also genes that are related to some disorders.
We found that there are many overlaps: to take one example, genes related to being taller are also related to obtaining a college or university degree.
We also asked whether the sets of genes associated with many disorders and traits predicted people’s actual levels of cognitive abilities.
We found many overlaps there, too.
To take one example, people with more genes linked to cardiovascular disease tended to have lower reasoning ability.”
The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry (Hagenaars et al., 2016).
