Need glasses? It may really mean you’re smarter than average, major study finds

If you need to wear glasses, some good news: you may well be smarter than the average person.

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has found that needing to wear glasses is associated with higher levels of intelligence.

In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted, researchers from the University of Edinburgh analysed cognitive and genetic data from over 300,000 people aged between 16 and 102 that had been gathered by the UK Biobank and the Charge and Cogent consortia. Their analysis found “significant genetic overlap between general cognitive function, reaction time, and many health variables including eyesight, hypertension, and longevity”. Specifically, people who were more intelligent were almost 30 per cent more likely to have genes which might indicate they’d need to wear glasses.

While being more intelligent may be linked to poor eyesight, it’s also connected with a lot of positive health benefits. Researchers found negative correlations between cognitive function and a number of health problems, including angina, lung cancer and depression.

It’s important to remember that these are all simply correlations not conclusive links. And it’s worth noting that what constitutes intelligence is subjective and can be difficult, if not impossible, to measure.

There is already plenty of empirical evidence that wearing glasses, whether you need them or not, makes people think you are more intelligent.