Intelligence

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London, : Brainy people have more chances of suffering from alcohol-related health problems as compared to their less intelligent conterparts, a study has found.

As a result of the study conduced by British scientists, it was revealed that people with high intelligence are more likely to get good jobs as a result of which they tend to drink more to beat the stress, the Daily Mail reported.

''An explanation might be that success in the workplace requires, in some circumstances, a willingness to drink frequently and to excess in social situations, '' lead researcher David Batty of the Medical Research Council said.

It was also found middle-class women are particularly likely to drink heavily in their 30s - putting them at risk of liver disease and certain types of cancer.

And women working in male-dominated professions are particularly susceptible to falling victim to alcohol problems.

For the study, scientists compared the mental ability of 8,710 people at the age of 10 with information about alcohol consumption and drink problems at the age of 30.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, showed that those with higher childhood mental ability scores had higher rates of problem drinking in adulthood.

The increased risk of drink problems was higher for intelligent women than for men. Those who admitted to drinking most days had the highest mental ability scores, while those who claimed never to have alcohol had the lowest.

Women in professional and managerial jobs had the highest rate of alcohol problems among women. Earlier, statistics showed that the more you earn, the more you drink - with those in higher income groups consuming 30 per cent more alcohol than the working classes.