As it becomes increasingly difficult to find a seat at McLennan, it’s clear midterms are fully underway at McGill. Although these tests make up less of our grades than finals, many students will do whatever it takes to perform well. Tactics range from taking up residence in the library to therapeutic baking to provide nourishment—and stress relief—while studying. While we’ve heard plenty of tips to improve both our study habits and test scores, a 2012 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests an interesting solution to boosting your GPA: chocolate.

The study investigated the link between cognitive ability and flavanols—a type of antioxidant present in foods such as chocolate, green tea, and red wine. Essentially, the researchers plotted chocolate consumption per country against the number of Nobel Prize Laureates produced by each in order to see if there was any correlation.

Surprisingly, the plot revealed a strong correlation of 0.79, with Sweden as the only anomaly. Take Sweden out of the picture, and the correlation improves to 0.86, suggesting a positive correlation between chocolate and intelligence.

“I attribute essentially all my success to the very large amount of chocolate that I consume,” joked American physicist Eric Cornell in an interview with Reuters, who shared the Nobel Prize in 2001. “I feel that milk chocolate makes you stupid. Now, dark chocolate is the way to go. It’s one thing if you want a medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize. But if you want a physics Nobel Prize, it pretty much has got to be dark chocolate.”

Although it’s a jest, Cornell makes a good point. The correlation between chocolate and Nobel Prize Laureates may be strong, but caution should be exercised before ordering Juliette & Chocolat’s entire dessert menu in the name of your grades.

The figures for chocolate consumption only came from two sources, Caobisco and Chocosuisse, and cover only four years of chocolate consumption. In comparison, the data for the Nobel Prize winners takes into account laureates from 1900 to 2011. This difference in time periods from which the data was taken is experimentally problematic.

While the correlation is interesting, it should be taken with a grain of salt. McGill chemistry professor Karine Auclair points out that countries who consume a large amount of chocolate also consume large amounts of milk, suggesting that it is a healthy and balanced diet that leads to improving cognitive abilities. Others attribute this correlation between chocolate and intelligence to socioeconomic factors. Scandinavian countries appear at the top of the graph, and are known to score high both on the Human Development Index (HDI) and in terms of per capita income. Likely higher chocolate consumption simply relates to greater affluence and an improved lifestyle.

It seems that while eating a few pounds of chocolate the night before an exam will do nothing more for your grades than induce  a sugar rush, leading a balanced lifestyle can in fact help improve your cognitive performance. This fact is not a mystery; with the stress of midterms over these next few weeks, it serves as a healthy reminder.