Birth Month May Influence Your Health: Here's Why

Could our birth month ultimately have anything to do with our health?

Recent findings published in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association discussed how scientists have developed a computational method that examines a relationship between birth month and disease risk. More specifically, scientists at Columbia University used an algorithm to examine New York City medical databases that revealed 55 diseases that correlated with birth month.

For the study, researchers compared 1,688 diseases against the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7 million patients treated at New York Presbyterian Hospital/CUMC between 1985 and 2013.

The data confirmed 39 links previously reported in medical literature, ruling out over 1,600 associations and uncovering 16 new associations, including nine types of heart disease. Furthermore, researchers found that 55 disease associations did not simply arise by chance when based on statistical tests.

"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. Nicholas Tatonetti, the study's senior author and an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and Columbia's Data Science Institute, in a news release. "The risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise."

For those born in July and October, their risk of developing asthma was significantly higher. When it came to ADHD, one out of every 675 diagnoses were associated with someone who was born in November. Furthermore, researchers found that the study had to do with a relationship between birth month and up to nine different types of heart disease.

"Faster computers and electronic health records are accelerating the pace of discovery," Mary Regina Boland, a lead author of study and graduate student at Columbia, added. "We are working to help doctors solve important clinical problems using this new wealth of data."

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