Article content

Countries whose people drink more milk win more Nobel prizes, according to research published Tuesday in Practical Neurology, a serious British journal.

It builds on research last year in the New England Journal of Medicine that found a nearly identical link between chocolate consumption and Nobel success.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Correlation and causation: The good statistical lesson behind study associating drinking milk and Nobel prizes Back to video

In Canada, for example, the average of about six Nobel laureates per 10 million people (22 prizes for 35 million people) and milk consumption of just over 200kg per person per year, puts it right in the middle of a spectrum that runs from China (low milk consumption, few per capita prizes) to Sweden (lots of milk, lots of prizes). Likewise, Canada’s middling annual chocolate consumption of about 4kg per person makes for a similar showing.

Both the milk and chocolate effects are very strong, with a likelihood of less than one in 10,000 that they are just flukes.

But what do they mean? Does milk make you smart? Or does chocolate make you smart, while also making you want to drink milk? Is milk chocolate more intellectual than dark chocolate? Are the scientists who wrote the milk paper serious when they advise aspiring Nobel winners to “strive for synergy with hot chocolate”? Or does the causation go the other way, and it is enhanced cognitive performance that stimulates chocolate consumption, which leads naturally to a glass of milk?