Thursday, April 09, 2009

If Doctors Make You Better Then Why Are Hospitals Full Of Sick People?

I saw this story a couple of days ago:

Patients with higher IQs are better at caring for their long-term health, new Scottish research has suggested.

A study involving 2000 Scots showed those with high intelligence are more likely to continue taking prescribed medication over a long period.

They were also able to consider the future of their health and to follow a course of preventative medication, even when there were no symptoms of illness.

This seems plausible, and one recent high profile celebrity death bears out the idea. However the reason I'm blogging about the story isn't because of any interest in the research, but because I remember seeing this same story a couple of months ago in the Daily Mail* and at the time thinking to myself that the comments demonstrate exactly why stupid people are a high risk group:

After my heart attack 4 years ago I have never missed taking my medication once ! does this mean I am now in the same category as Albert Einstein ?
what a load of Tosh ""

I don't agree. IQ has nothing to do with being smart or intelligent or skilled or anything else. I don't need to go to 'doctors' because I am healthy and won't allow them to inject filth into my body in any form and become unhealthy.

Many of tose folk with a higher IQ live longer because they avoid anything to do with the medical profession preferring to diagnose to themselves as to keeping their fitness.

- hills, Aquitaine,

And the really intelligent amongst us stay away from doctors in the first place.

What a load of rubbish. I would have thought that an intelligent person would look at all options not just do as the doctor says. Where is the intelligence in taking pills that you have been told to take by someone wearing a white coat?

The whole thread continues in that style with the general consensus being that doctors and modern medicine make you ill.

* I don't usually go in for sneering at the 'Daily Mail', except for their health coverage which is aimed at hypochondriacs and idiots.

3 comments:

JuliaM said...

Oh. my. word...

Infidel753 said...

One shudders to contemplate the health and probable longevity of the commenters.

This seems to confirm that intelligence is indeed a survival characteristic. It looks like a classic case of natural selection in action.

Ross said...

"It looks like a classic case of natural selection in action."

I suppose that's one way of looking at it.