Chocolate was known to boost memory, was super good for your health and sometimes even for the environment. But what we didn't know (decidedly, we learn every day), is that the more chocolate a country eats, the more Nobel Prizes it has! One more good reason to sink your teeth into it (whether it's cooked or even raw)! YUM!
It is in the very serious American medical journal New England Journal of Medicine that this study appeared in 2012. Professor at Columbia University in New York and head of this research, Dr. Franz Messerli was based on the study of flavonoids, these powerful antioxidants present in large quantities in cocoa beans (and in tea), which improve mental functions in the elderly.
His basic question? “If chocolate can hypothetically improve cognitive functions in individuals and therefore in a whole population, is there a correlation between the consumption of cocoa in a country and the mental abilities of its inhabitants? »
The answer:yes, "there is a surprisingly significant correlation between per capita chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel laureates per ten million people in a total of 23 countries," he notes. Switzerland, for example, tops both the number of Nobel Prize winners and the amount of chocolate consumed. The United States, France and Germany are in the middle, and China, Japan and Brazil are at the bottom of the pack.
So ok, these "correlations" seem a bit light to us. (not like the chocolate we love). But if it allows us to get even more excited by giving free rein to our gluttony, then that's fine with us! 🙂
