Fast Company reports: 

People are living longer than ever, says a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), but smart people live longer yet. People who are, shall we say, less smart die younger than more intelligent folks, and various studies around the world are attempting to find out why.

IQ affects how long you manage to stick around in this life, with a 15% increase in IQ giving a 21% better chance of not dying. These numbers come from a cohort study by researchers Lawrence Whalley and Ian Deary, using the Scottish Mental Surveys, a historic survey in which almost all 11-year olds in Scotland got the same IQ test on the same day in 1932. The new study found out which of these subjects were still alive, and at which age others had died.