Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
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Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#2Why do viral infections have a stronger effect on IQ than bacterial?
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#3This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#4Interesting study, but as the authors concede, one can't quite rule out that the causal flow is in the opposite direction to that which they propose - that is, people with lower cognitive ability are more likely to end up with infections, and people with much lower cognitive ability are more likely to end up with severe infections.
I mean, consider people with dementia, sat in their own faeces (at the severely diminished/severe infection end of the scale), or people with lower intellect lower on the socio-economic scale engaging with jobs where they're more likely to end up with infections - construction, handling hazardous waste, etc. etc.
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#5This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
Cognitive decline happens whether you like it or not, I'm afraid to say.
I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words, can't memorise long strings of digits as well as I used to be able to, and so-forth.
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#6This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
I can definitely relate to this comment. The synaptic composition of your brain is essentially your identity, your merits and demerits. I'm definitely a hypochondriac when it comes to brain health, given how high the stakes are. It's crazy that even a minor concussion can cause lasting brain damage: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/15/174409382/can-just-one-concuss...
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#7This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
Cognitive decline happens whether you like it or not, I'm afraid to say. I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words, can't memorise long strings of digits as well as I used to be able to, and so-forth.
>I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone...
That's a really young age to have any sort of marked age-related cognitive decline. It might be explained by something else--even something as "simple" as insufficient quality sleep or stress, both of which can wreak havoc on cognitive ability.
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#8This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
Cognitive decline happens whether you like it or not, I'm afraid to say. I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words, can't memorise long strings of digits as well as I used to be able to, and so-forth.
This could be because you're not getting enough sleep (or aren't sleeping well due to e.g. apnea or something). Set up a simple experiment: go to bed 1-1.5 hours earlier than you usually do for a couple of weeks and see if your "cognitive decline" disappears. As you age you might find you need more sleep.
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#9This sort of news really scare me. Your brain defines who you are and what capabilities you have, and damaging it can completely change you. The brain is very responsible for a big part of your success and losing it can have a big impact in your life.
Cognitive decline happens whether you like it or not, I'm afraid to say. I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words, can't memorise long strings of digits as well as I used to be able to, and so-forth.
> I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words,
Is this an example of that? Did you mean 'placed' or do I mis-understand you?
Re: Infection inflicts a persistent decrease in IQ: study with 180,000 participants
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cognitive decline happens whether you like it or not, I'm afraid to say. I've hit my early 30s and I've started noticing that I'm far more prone to inappropriately replaced words, can't memorise long strings of digits as well as I used to be able to, and so-forth.
This could be because you're not getting enough sleep (or aren't sleeping well due to e.g. apnea or something). Set up a simple experiment: go to bed 1-1.5 hours earlier than you usually do for a couple of weeks and see if your "cognitive decline" disappears. As you age you might find you need more sleep.
> As you age you might find you need more sleep.
This is very true for me, much to my surprise. I used to get by on 3 to 4 hours every night but that seems to have really caught up with me. If I don't get 8 hours minimum now I'm woozy the rest of the day.