A new study has found that month of birth could determine the probability of developing certain diseases in later life.
The research was published in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association.
It was based on the evidence of 1.7 million medical records kept by the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
The sample population comprised of people born between 1900 and 2000, and these who had received treatmentZ between 1985 and 2013.
The majority of the sample were aged between 20 and 60.
Nicholas Tatonetti, senior author of the study and assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia Universty said that he hoped the new data would aid the discovery of new disease risk factors.
They found that birth months were linked with variable risk of 55 diseases, with those born in May least likely to be affected by a birth-month-related disease, and those born in October most likely.
Those born during winter months were generally the highest risk group.
Ten of the 55 were cardiovascular diseases, with cardiomyopathy and hypertension highest among January babies, and lowest among September and October babies. Yet the risk of a person suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was highest for those born in November.
Tatonetti added a significant and reassuring caveat:
The risk related to birth months is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise.
The research was also limited in so far is it did not incorporate variables such as ethnicity, socioeconomics, climate or environment.
