Breaking News: Weird Study Just Released

The quality of published research continues its steady decline.

Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center just released a new study that concluded that a person’s IQ during high school is predictive of alcohol consumption later in life. According to the researchers… “every one-point increase in IQ score was associated with a 1.6% increase in the likelihood of reporting moderate or heavy drinking as compared to abstinence.”

It’s a tad bit hard to ignore the fact that this study (a study published in 2024, may I remind you) is using a sample of 6,300 students who graduated in… 1957 (1957!!!) — with the cutoff for measuring “late life alcohol intake” being set to 2004 (2004!!!). I’m going to say this now… and I hope this doesn’t surprise anyone reading this, but there isn’t a great deal that you can conclude about the relationship between IQ and alcohol intake based on a cohort of people born in 1939 (in Wisconsin out of all places). Of course, none of the flashy news headlines carrying the story will share any of these egregious details.

We also do actually have a much better study from 2015 that was carried out in Sweden. One of the many reasons why the Swedish study is superior is that fact it makes use of 49,321 participants (versus UT’s 6,300). Its conclusion?

IQ in adolescence was inversely associated with moderate/high alcohol consumption in middle age. The exact opposite conclusion of the new study.

Latest UT Study

Druffner N, Egan D, Ramamurthy S, et al. IQ in high school as a predictor of midlife alcohol drinking patterns. Alcohol and Alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire). 2024 May;59(4):agae035. DOI: 10.1093/alcalc/agae035. PMID: 38804536.

Swedish Study

Sjölund S, Hemmingsson T, Allebeck P. IQ and level of alcohol consumption—findings from a national survey of Swedish conscripts. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2015 Mar;39(3):548-55. doi: 10.1111/acer.12656. Epub 2015 Feb 20. PMID: 25702705; PMCID: PMC4368388.