A new publication in the Prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (that is how the news media always refer to it, I think they should change the abbreviation to PNEJM) Messerli FH: Chocolate consumption, cognitive function, and nobel laureates. New England Journal of Medicine, online first October 10, 2012, shows that chocolate consumption per capita is very strongly correlated with number of Nobel Prize winners as expressed as a proportion of the population. The correlation is much better than you would usually find in an epidemiology publication. While the authors are appropriately cautious about implying causality, they do suggest that either chocolate makes you smarter, or that smarter people choose chocolate. Readily testable hypotheses, with large simple RCTs. I just don’t want to be randomized to placebo, thanks.
Thanks, Keith.
I bet you that in the PNEJM study the laureates were the ones in their countries that did NOT like chocolate (and the whole hypothesis is based on the ecological fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy). Or…..?
Martin (chocolate lover, though)