Your heart risk may be higher if you were born in March

THE month you were born in can have an impact on how likely you are to become ill, US researchers have claimed.

They created an algorithm to scour birth and medical records to look for links. Using New York City medical databases, they found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth.

Overall, the Columbia University study indicated people born in May had the lowest disease risk, and those born in October the highest.

‘This data could help scientists uncover new disease risk factors,’ wrote author Nicholas Tatonetti, in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association.

The study authors found that asthma risk is greatest for July and October babies.

For ADHD, the Columbia data

‘Don’t get overly nervous’

suggest that around one in 675 occurrences could relate to being born in New York in November.

The researchers also found a relationship between birth month and nine types of heart disease, with people born in March facing the highest risk for atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and mitral valve disorder.

‘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,’ notes Dr Tatonetti.

For the study Columbia’s scientists compared 1,688 diseases against the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7million patients treated at a New York hospital between 1985 and 2013.

The researchers now plan to replicate their study with data from several other locations in the US and from around the world to see how results vary with the change of seasons and environmental factors in those places.

They hope to use the results figure out how they might close the gap in the disparities.