Do you have a Nobel Prize? No? It’s probably because you’re not eating enough chocolate.

A new study recently published in the New England Journal Of Medicine claims that the more chocolate a country eats the more Nobel laureates it produces.

The study took a look at a country’s per capita chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel winners per 10 million people. Surprisingly, the study found a direct connection between the two.

Reuters reports that Sweden was near the top of the list for both chocolate consumption and Nobel wins. The United States fell in the middle for both categories and China, which eats the least amount of chocolate, had the least amount of Nobel winners per 10 million people.

What more proof do you need? Chocolate leads to Nobel prizes.

American physicist and 2001 Nobel physics winner Eric Cornell said that the data is interesting but probably doesn’t tell the entire story.

Cornell said:

“Scientists look at hundreds and hundreds of different things, and every once in a while they will find two things that are surprisingly correlated with each other, and then they will say, ‘Look at those very strong correlations and how important that is.’ But what they don’t do is tell you about all the different things that aren’t correlated.”

Cornell said that chocolate consumption is tied to wealth which is tied to research facilities which is tied to Nobel prizes. So yes, a country that eats a lot of chocolate will probably produce a lot of Nobel winners. But not because of Chocolate consumption.

Cornell said:

“National chocolate consumption is correlated with a country’s wealth and high-quality research is correlated with a country’s wealth. So therefore chocolate is going to be correlated with high-quality research, but there is no causal connection there.”

According to the observations reported in the New England Journal Of Medicine, chocolate may have a closer link to Nobel success than Cornell suggests. Flavanols, which can be found in things like chocolate and red wine, have been shown to improve cognitive function. So, hypothetically, eating more chocolate could increase your chances of winning a Nobel Prize.

Here’s a look at a chocolate vs. Nobel chart.

Cornell says that the key is to eat dark chocolate and not milk chocolate.

Cornell said:

“Personally I feel that milk chocolate makes you stupid … Now dark chocolate is the way to go. It’s one thing if you want like a medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize, ok, but if you want a physics Nobel Prize it pretty much has got to be dark chocolate.”

What do you think? Should the United States start supplying millions of chocolate bars to schools around the country?