The more chocolate a country consumes the more Noble Prizes in wins, a new study carried out by a team of U. S. researchers claimed.

The study, led by Columbia University Professor Franz Messerli, found a linear correlation between the level of consumption of chocolate by a country and its population's cognitive function.

The study put Switzerland at the top of the list, with 31 Noble laureates and chocolate consumption of 13 kg/yr/capita.

With 10 Nobel laureates per 10 million and around 5.5 kg/yr/capita chocolate consumption, the United States emerged in the middle of the list. Denmark and Austria also get positioned in the middle of the list with nearly 9 kg/yr/capita chocolate consumption and 25 and 24 Noble laureates per 10 million respectively.

China, Japan and Brazil, all of which have low per capita chocolate consumption emerged at the bottom of the list.

Commenting on the findings, Messerli said, "The slope of the regression line allows us to estimate that it would take about 0.4 kg of chocolate per capita per year to increase the number of Nobel laureates in a given country by one.”

However, the researcher added that the study should be taken with a grain of salt as the study wasn’t peer-reviewed. The researcher admitted that that any real conclusion would have to be tested in an eventual, randomized trial.

The study published in the most recent issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.