Sunday, January 31, 2021

Chocolates & Nobel Prizes

Came across this old study from the New England Journal of Medicine (2012) that asks the very important question: Does a country's chocolate consumption affect the number of Nobel Laureats it produces?

The study found that there was a strong, significant correlation (r=0.791, p<0.00001) between the amount of chocolate consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureats per 10 million persons in a total of 23 countries:


Look at the Swiss! But is correlation really causation? 

The article had three explanations:

Hypotheis 1: Since cholocolate helps improve cognitve functions, more chocolate intake in a population provides a more abundant "fertile ground" for producing Nobel winning minds.

Hypothesis 2: Reverse causation (aka the elitist explanation). Smarter people eat more chocolate because they are better aware of the benefits of falavanols in dark chocolate.

Hypothesis 3: We just don't know. This was a purely statistical exercise, not a randomized trial-- it's too difficult to identify a "plausible common denominator." That's seems to be the right explanation. Fun nonetheless.

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