Connection between eating chocolates and winning Nobels?

With this year’s Nobel Peace Prize going to the European Union, Dr Franz H Messerli, the cardiologist who has suggested that consumption of chocolate may have a direct correlation to getting one of the coveted Swedish awards, will feel vindicated.

The release of his ‘study’ averring a link between eating chocolate and better cognitive function was greeted with amusement, but the fact cannot be denied that the country with the most Nobel laureates per 10 million people also consumes the most chocolate: Switzerland.

That Sweden comes second and Denmark at the third place merely underlines the International Cocoa Organization’s data that Europeans account for nearly half the world’s chocolate consumption. Messerli admits his findings are “hypothesis-generating only” and are yet to be tested, but the preponderance of European laureates does suggest a curious connection.

He has also calculated that percapita consumption of chocolate has to rise by 400 gm a year for acountry’s Nobel tally to increase by one, so India has a long way to go considering the figure here stands at 120 gm per person per year, compared to the 11 kg the Swiss gobble up.

Though chocolate has not traditionally been a preferred confection in China and India — which could perhaps be the reason for the low percentage of Nobel laureates from there — tastes are changing.

According to industry estimates, sales of chocolate are slated to rise 19% in China and 7% in India this year and the Asian market in totality is expected to expand to 20% of world sales by 2016.

If the number of laureates from this continent rises commensurately in the next four years, the link may be conclusively established. Unless, of course, it is not that chocolate makes you smarter but that smart people eat chocolate.