Dr. Mark Weiser and colleagues at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer Medical found that young people who smoked a pack of cigarettes or more a day had IQs 7.5 points lower than nonsmokers.

“Adolescents with low IQ scores should be the target of programs designed to prevent snuff,” they conclude in the journal Addiction.

While there is evidence of the relationship between smoking and lower IQ, many studies have been based on intelligence tests carried out in childhood, and have included people with mental or behavioral problems, which are more likely to smoke and have a low IQ, said Weiser and his team.

To better understand the relationship between snuff and IQ, the scientists looked at 20,211 young people recruited by the Israeli army.

The group did not include anyone with serious mental health problems because these individuals are not fit for military service.

According to scientists, 28 percent of the participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, about 3 percent were former smokers and 68 percent had never smoked.

The smokers had poorer data on intelligence tests than non-smokers, and this continued so even after the researchers took into account socioeconomic status, measured by years of formal education is the father of the recruit.

Mean IQ of non-smokers was 101, while it stood at 94 for men who started smoking before entering the Army.

The ratio fell with increasing the number of cigarettes, 98 for those who smoked between 1 and 5 to 90 for those who consumed more than one package.

The score between 84 and 116 is considered average intelligence level.

The recruits were prohibited from smoking while doing the test so it is possible that the withdrawal could affect the results, the researchers said.

To address this issue, they found scores of men who did not smoke when they entered but began to do during military service.

They also had worse scores than those who never smoked, 97 on average, “Give up nicotine, indicating that probably was not the cause of difference”, they said.

They also studied the IQ of 70 pairs of brothers, one of whom smoked and the other not. Again, the best score obtained nonsmoker.

The findings imply that individuals with lower IQs are more likely to smoke, rather than smoking makes people less intelligent, they concluded.

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