Month: August 2023

One trait is linked to a worse score in intelligence tests.

People with unstable emotions tend to get lower scores on IQ tests, studies find.

This may, though, be down to nervousness while taking the test.

In fact, people who are neurotic may have higher IQs than the standard test reveals.

Neuroticism, one of the five major personality traits, encompasses unstable emotions, anxiety, self-consciousness and irritability.

People who are higher in neuroticism may also sleep poorly, the study’s authors explain:

“High scorers tend to be sensitive, emotional, worrying, moody, frequently depressed, often sleep badly and may suffer from various psychosomatic disorders.

Low scorers tend to be secure, hardy and generally relaxed even under stressful conditions.”

The conclusions come from two studies, the first of which was conducted on 646 Dutch twins.

The results showed that people higher in neuroticism got lower scores on an IQ test.

The link is down to genetics, the researchers concluded.

However, a second study gave IQ tests to 213 people and split them into two groups depending on how anxious they were.

The results of this study showed that the more nervous people were, the lower their IQ scores.

By statistically removing the effects of anxiety, though, the researchers were able to show that highly neurotic people are just as intelligent.

The authors conclude:

“Neurotics become more anxious under testing conditions, and this anxiety affects their performance on the IQ tests.

It is therefore proposed that Neuroticism is not related to intelligence per se, but to intelligence test performance, which has been proposed in the past (Eysenck, 1971).

This suggestion implies that IQ tests may underestimate the true intelligence of Neurotic individuals.”

The studies were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Bartels et al., 2012; Moutafi et al., 2006).

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Almost one-in-five suffer from mental illness, the study found.

A healthy diet is linked to good mental health, whatever your age and background, research finds.

People who avoid unhealthy foods — like fried and processed foods — have fewer symptoms of psychological distress.

Only around one-in-ten people in the US eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables.

The recommended amount in the US is 1½ to 2 cups per day of fruit and 2 to 3 cups per day of vegetables.

In contrast, a poor diet is linked to poor mental health: sugar and processed grain are thought to be among the main culprits.

Dr Jim E. Banta, the study’s first author, said:

“This and other studies like it could have big implications for treatments in behavorial medicine.

Perhaps the time has come for us to take a closer look at the role of diet in mental health, because it could be that healthy diet choices contribute to mental health.

More research is needed before we can answer definitively, but the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction.”

The study included data from over 240,000 people in California, which was collected across ten years.

The results revealed that 13% of people experienced moderate psychological distress, with 4% in severe psychological distress.

The study’s authors conclude that their study is…

“…additional evidence that public policy and clinical practice should more explicitly aim to improve diet quality among those struggling with mental health.

[…]

dietary interventions for people with mental illness should especially target young adults, those with less than 12 years of education, and obese individuals.”

A previous study found that the more fruit and vegetables people eat, the better their state of mind.

Eating just one extra portion of fruit and vegetables per day is enough to measurably improve mental well-being.

Just one portion has the same positive effect as going for a walk on 8 extra days a month.

The study was published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition (Banta et al., 2019).

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People who consume their daily calories in this way can double weight loss.

Eating high quality proteins like eggs, Greek yogurt and lean meats for breakfast can boost weight loss, research finds.

Having more calories for breakfast has even been linked to more than doubling weight loss, one study has found.

Consuming more calories at breakfast is linked to a greater chance of losing weight and reducing the waistline.

Even having a desert at breakfast, such as a cookie or piece of chocolate cake, was linked by the previous study to lower levels of insulin later on and healthier triglyceride levels.

In general, people who consume their daily calories earlier in the day can double weight loss.

Despite this, more than half of young people skip breakfast, researchers find.

This is what inspired Dr Heather Leidy, co-author of the current study:

“This study examined if the type of breakfast consumed can improve weight management in young people who habitually skip breakfast.

Generally, people establish eating behaviors during their teen years.

If teens are able to develop good eating habits now, such as eating breakfast, it’s likely to continue the rest of their lives.”

The study included 28 overweight teens, half of whom were fed a high-protein breakfast (35g) and half a normal-protein breakfast (13g).

Normal protein breakfasts involved milk and cereal while high-protein breakfasts included eggs, dairy and lean pork.

All the teenagers in the study reported skipping breakfast almost every day of the week.

Dr Leidy explained the results:

“The group of teens who ate high-protein breakfasts reduced their daily food intake by 400 calories and lost body fat mass, while the groups who ate normal-protein breakfast or continued to skip breakfast gained additional body fat.

These results show that when individuals eat a high-protein breakfast, they voluntarily consume less food the rest of the day. In addition, teens who ate high-protein breakfast had more stable glucose levels than the other groups.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity (Bauer et al., 2015).

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