| A recent study found there to be a significant linear correlation between chocolate consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureates per 10 million persons in a total of 23 countries concluding that eating chocolate might make your country smarter! In their results they say: “The slope of the regression line allows us to estimate that it would take about 0.4 kg of chocolate per capita per year to increase the number of Nobel laureates in a given country by 1. For the United States, that would amount to 125 million kg per year. The minimally effective chocolate dose seems to hover around 2 kg per year, and the dose–response curve reveals no apparent ceiling on the number of Nobel laureates at the highest chocolate-dose level of 11 kg per year.”  (c) Disney But, let’s not put this whole child obesity thing behind us and start passing out chocolate to our future academics. Although it’s probably cheaper than improving our education system, we don’t want to delve into a state similar to Wall-E just to have more Nobel laureates. Plus, while it is stated in this study that eating chocolate enhances cognitive function, which is a necessary trait for winning the Nobel Prize, they made no claim that chocolate consumption was the MECHANISM for the association. Chocolate could cause laureates (causation), having more laureates could cause people to each chocolate (reverse causation) or something completely unrelated could be causing both (common denominator). The only way to find out is to do more research. I am a willing candidate for study. |  For those of you who know how to read statistics, these are the results: r=0.862, P<0.0001 (excluding, one outlier, Sweden, which, based on their chocolate consumption would have 14 laureates when in actuality they have 32). If you include Sweden, the correlation is still quite significant at r=0.791, P<0.0001. Switzerland, won best in show with the highest rate of both number of Nobel laureates per 10 million persons and chocolate consumption per capita (mmm Swiss Chocolate). Although the USA has the most Nobel laureates with 338, we’re just above the middle for both categories. |
| Here are some things we know about chocolate:
| Here are some things we know about Nobel laureates:
 Please Indulge Responsibly! |
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