Does your birth month affect your health? New research unveils surprising discovery

The month you were born in can correlate with your risk for disease.

New studies prove the month you were born in affects the probabilities of you becoming ill. The new research employed software to search birth and medical records to look for connections.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - The researchers found 55 diseases that were correlated with the birth season of individuals after examining New York City medical records. The Columbia University study showed that people with the lowest disease risk are people who were born in the month of May. In contrast, those who were born in the month of October have the highest disease risk.

"Lifetime disease risk is affected by birth month," the researchers wrote in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. "Seasonally dependent early developmental mechanisms may play a role in increasing lifetime risk of disease."

Nicholas Tatonetti, an author and doctor, stated, "This data could help scientists uncover new disease risk factors."

Since it is also the researchers' goal to see how results vary with the change of seasons and with different environmental factors, they plan to duplicate their study with data from several other locations in the U.S. and abroad. Their objective is to identify the causes of incongruence causing disease by birth month, and ultimately figure out how they might close and solve the gap.

"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," Dr. Tatonetti explained. "The risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise."

The study eliminated more than 1,600 associations and confirmed 39 links previously reported in the medical literature. They discovered 16 new relationships that included nine kinds of heart disease.

The study's lead author, Mary Regina Boland, said that faster computers and electronic health records are helping them speed up the pace of their discovery. She concluded, "We are working to help doctors solve important clinical problems using this new wealth of data."

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