Your IQ, wealth and health

Your childhood IQ could predict your wealth and longevity.

The fact that on average, higher IQ makes you richer is well documented. For example, a 1992 American Enterprise Institute research studied 1,704 pairs of siblings, found that the brighter ones earned an average of $33,500, while the less-smart ones made on average $20,000--a 67 percent disparity. (In today's dollars, this is about $45,367 to $27,000.)

I don't have numbers handy yet, but high IQ people do live healthier lives. This may because high IQ people know how to taking care of themselves better. Consider this - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Jan. 2004), reported that masses of people can't follow their drug prescriptions correctly. Of the 1.8 billion prescriptions made, 50% are incorrectly taken. It's possible that people just don't understand the instructions. After all, in the United States, 11 million people or 5% adults can't read English. How can you live long if you can't even read prescriptions right ?