Chocolate Makes You Smarter – It’s a Fact! (No, We’re Not Just Trying To Make You Feel Better)

Want to feel better about all those chocolate eggs you've been munching over the weekend? A new study shows that countries that eat the most chocolate also happen to have the most Nobel-prize winning citizens. Seriously. Let the diet guilt trip start next week - a study published in the New England Journal Of Medicine paper Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates, shows a direct link between how much chocolate a country munched through and the positive effects the treat has on the brain that could apply to a whole country’s population. Image via Business Insider Explaining the results of the paper, Franz H. Messerli, MD. and author of the paper said: "The principal finding of this study is a surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries. Of course, a correlation between X and Y does not prove causation but indicates that either X influences Y, Y influences X, or X and Y are influenced by a common underlying mechanism. However, since chocolate consumption has been documented to improve cognitive function, it seems most likely that in a dose-dependent way, chocolate intake provides the abundant fertile ground needed for the sprouting of Nobel laureates." So, even though we're not entirely sure we understand the maths equation, we're happy it gives us the thumbs up to carry on our chocolate addiction. Sure it's good for us. That's the REAL reason we ate all the eggs. We swear.