SECONDHAND smoke shaves points off kids’ IQ. Even those exposed to small amounts of cigarette smoke have slightly lower cognitive abilities, a study of over 4000 American children suggests.
“These levels may not be meaningful for an individual child, but they have huge implications for our society because millions of children are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke,” says Kimberly Yolton of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.
Yolton’s team looked at levels of a breakdown product of nicotine called cotinine in the blood of 4399 children aged between 6 and 16. They also examined their scores on a number of intelligence tests, using data…
