Hours of driving and watching TV lower IQ scores research suggests
A doctoral student from our University has commanded global media coverage for a study that found that driving for more than two hours a day appears to steadily reduce intelligence.
The study by the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre - a partnership between Leicester’s Hospitals and the University of Leicester -investigated how sedentary behaviour affects brainpower. It found IQ scores fell faster in middle-aged Britons who drove long distances every day.
Those who drove more than two to three hours a day typically had lower brainpower at the start of the study, which kept on declining throughout and at a faster rate than those who did little or no driving.
Kishan Bakrania, a PhD student in Epidemiology in our Department of Health Sciences had his manuscript accepted by the American Journal of Epidemiology on 13 July.