There is a link between childhood intelligence and chronic widespread pain (CWP) in adult life.

The finding, published in the December issue of PAIN, came from a team in the UK after observing almost 7000 males and females from age 11 to age 45.

Previous research in Rheumatology demonstrated that bad behavior in childhood is linked to long-term chronic widespread pain in adulthood.

CWP is a musculoskeletal complaint that is quite common. It affects about 10 to 15% of adults and occurs more often among women and those of lower socioeconomic status. It is the main symptom of fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder involving musculoskeletal pain and fatigue, and the main reason that people seek advice from a rheumatologist.

Dr. Catharine R. Gale, leading researcher, MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, UK, and Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, explained:

“One psychological factor that could potentially be a risk factor for CWP in adult life is lower cognitive ability in youth. Our hypotheses were that men and women who scored lower on the test of intelligence in childhood would have an increased risk of CWP in midlife and that some of this association would be mediated through socioeconomic status, mental health, or lifestyle factors in adulthood.”

Data was analyzed from the National Child Development Survey, which is a continuing cohort study that first started with more than 17,000 live births in Great Britain during one week in 1958.

A test of intelligence was given to the participants at age 11, and at age 45, they were asked to complete a biomedical survey that evaluated the presence of CWP.

About 14% (14.4) of the subjects had CWP. At age 11, both sexes with CWP performed significantly worse on the test of intelligence. They were also more likely to:

  • be a current or ex-smoker
  • have manual jobs
  • report higher levels of psychological distress
  • have a higher BMI (body mass index)

Men and women with lower intelligence have a higher chance of developing CWP, the authors concluded. This was the first trial, according to Gale, to examine the potential link between intelligence and CWP.

The study indicates that people have a lower chance of developing this debilitating condition when they have a higher intelligence as a child. The mechanisms causing this link now need to be explored.

Eva M. Kingma and Judith G.M. Rosmalen of the Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands wrote in a commentary accompanying the report:

“Although an association between chronic pain and cognitive ability has been shown before, the Gale et al. report is the first longitudinal study in a large general population cohort. Two important characteristics stand out in their study.

First, its longitudinal design enabled the researchers to study causal direction as well as interesting explanatory mechanisms in the association between intelligence and pain. Second, the study used a population-based design, which contrasts with many previous etiological studies that compared patients to healthy controls. This approach is especially relevant because CWP is much more prevalent than clinical data on fibromyalgia suggest.


Written by Sarah Glynn