Could your birth month give some insight into your health? Maybe so, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
PhD student Mary Boland from Columbia University Medical Center along with her team examined the data of 1.7 million patients who were treated at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center from 1985 to 2013.
The objective?
They wanted to see if being born in certain months increased the person’s risk of developing certain diseases later in life. Turns out that those born in May had the lowest risk while those born in October had the highest risk. Interesting, right?
Nicholas Tatonetti, PhD, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center, had the following to say to Yahoo Health regarding the team’s findings:
“The most striking was a trend we found that those born in late winter or early spring were more likely to have heart disease. And we didn’t find just one type of heart disease associated with birth month, but we actually found several.”
Researchers also found that March babies had a higher risk of atrial fibrillation, heart failure and mitral valve disorder. On the other hand, July and October babies had a higher risk of asthma, while November babies were more likely to suffer from ADHD.
Furthermore, people who were born in spring had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, while those born in fall had a higher risk of reproductive illnesses. Last but not least, those born in winter were more likely to develop reproductive diseases, but for whatever reason, it was not specified what the risk of being born in summer was.
Despite these findings, Tatonetti wants to assure everyone that there is no reason to panic if you and/or your child was born in March, July, October, November or any month for that matter as there is still additional research required.
“It’s important not to get overly nervous about these results because even though we found significant associations, the overall disease risk is not that great,” he said. “The risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise.”
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