Single Gene Can Boost IQ By Six Points

ananyo (2519492) writes "People are living longer, which is good. But old age often brings a decline in mental faculties and many researchers are looking for ways to slow or halt such decline. One group doing so is led by Dena Dubal of the University of California, San Francisco, and Lennart Mucke of the Gladstone Institutes, also in San Francisco. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke have been studying the role in aging of klotho, a protein encoded by a gene called KL. A particular version of this gene, KL-VS, promotes longevity. One way it does so is by reducing age-related heart disease. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke wondered if it might have similar powers over age-related cognitive decline. What they found was startling. KL-VS did not curb decline, but it did boost cognitive faculties regardless of a person's age by the equivalent of about six IQ points. If this result, just published in Cell Reports, is confirmed, KL-VS will be the most important genetic agent of non-pathological variation in intelligence yet discovered."

Re:First post!

[ideonexus]

For everyone else who has that gene (I don't know if I do, I'm still trying to figure out what SNP KLOTHO references in my genetic results [ideonexus.com]), and can't stand reading the Economist's painfully dumbed-down explanation of the research, here's the actual paper [cell.com].

Re:Standard Deviation

[fph il quozientatore]

The standard deviation is 15. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. As for the statistical significance, not sure. IANAS, so I am not sure which formulas to best use to model it. According to TFA, their sample size is 718, of which 1/5 possess the gene, so intuitively I'd say that 6 points do seem significant.

Re:"boost"???

[msauve]

Nothing implies a change in an individual. The difference is within a population.

Re:So what is the downside?

[coinreturn]

If all this gene achieved was less cardiovascular diseases and higher intelligence, we would (nearly) all have it by now due to selection. So the question is, what else does it do which counterweights this?

Not really. Cardiovascular disease generally kills long after the age of reproduction. The number of people who would have been born if not for parental death by cardiovascular disease is likely pretty small. Also, those with higher intelligence tend to reproduce less.

Re:TL;DR, but I presume statistics

[ShanghaiBill]

My guess would be that two groups, those that express the gene and those that do not have a 6 point difference in IQ on average, in favor of those with the gene.

That is part of what they did. They looked at a group of 718 people, about 20% with the gene. Those with the gene scored, on average, 6 points higher. But they went further. They also inserted the gene into otherwise genetically identical mice, and the mice with the gene did significantly better on a range of cognitive tests.

Re:wow, people still believe in the IQ myth? That

[Opportunist]

Erh... yes? Your argument with my statement above would be what exactly?

To clarify: I don't believe in evolution. It is "only" the only scientifically acceptable theory concerning the development of life that we have currently. But that's independent of my faith in it. It simply is. There's little I could accomplish by believing in it.

Unless someone can come up with a competing theory that deserves the name there's not really an alternative to it. It is also a quite acceptable theory, supported by what we know about how life developed and not contradicted by anything I could think of currently.

My problem is with the term of believing. Believing something requires some kind of faith, believing someone requires some kind of trust. Neither has anything to do with science.