AP Photo/David Longstreath
DCL
While there seems to be widespread belief that poverty is perpetuated by poor intelligence in underdeveloped countries, researchers have found the exact opposite: infectious diseases that are rampant in poverty-stricken nations actively contribute to poor intelligence.
The latest Economist has an interesting article on the theory that brain development is impaired in children when they are fighting an illness—that the brain diverts energy from developing brainpower to fighting disease.
In a newborn baby, for example, the brain should consume 87 percent of the child's metabolic energy and at five years old, about 44 percent. If the body is sick and trying to fend off a pathogen or parasite, the brain does not get the energy it needs.
competition for this energy is likely to damage the brain's development, and parasites and pathogens compete for it in several ways. Some feed on the host's tissue directly, or hijack its molecular machinery to reproduce. Some, particularly those that live in the gut, stop their host absorbing food. And all provoke the host's immune system into activity, which diverts resources from other things.
The study looked at worldwide statistics and found a strong correlation between a country's average intelligence and disease burden—intelligence low when disease burden is high.
All the more reason to step up support malaria- and infectious disease-fighting efforts. I recently saw an anti-malarial organization talking to passersby, in that signature Greenpeace and Save the Children "Do you have a second?" style. But they had a mosquito net demonstration out and a mascot mosquito to grab people's attention. I hope other major tropical diseases start to be a focus. And I hope if people see that sort of thing, they have a second to stop.
