Very interesting article in New Scientist this week about a possible link between exam grades and becoming bipolar.

Straight-A students are more likely to develop bipolar disorder than their more mediocre peers, at least in Sweden, according to a new study of more than 700,000 former high-school students.

Within 15 years of sitting their final high-school exams, aged 15 and 16, at least 280 of the students were diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After taking into account their parents’ income and education – factors that are known to affect exam scores – the highest-achieving students were more than three times more likely to suffer from the mental illness than their average peers.

Male overachievers, meanwhile, developed the disease 4.4 times more often than their average male classmates.

The stereotype of the brilliant but tortured artist aside, some aspects of manic episodes could reflect increased intelligence, he says. “People who have a biological predisposition to bipolar disorder have advantages, I suppose you could call them, in that they’re able to think clearly, think fast and concentrate,” MacCabe says.

700,000 is a massive sample size so it should mean that the study is quite a good one. However, it is limited only to Sweden school students it would be interesting to see if these results were reflected elsewhere in both first world and third world countries. Could mental illness be a by-product of technological, sociological and the complexities of the modern world on the human brain?