Color us easily impressed, but we always find personality and health-related studies to be fascinating. Whether they’re revealing what our lipstick says about us or determining our age based on our name, researchers and scientists really know how to make us think about ourselves in a whole new light. The latest noteworthy study provides insight on how someone’s birth month could predict potential health issues. Future parents, you may be curious about this one.
According to Medical Daily, Columbia University researchers conducted research to see if there was a connection between the time of year someone is born and their risk for a variety of diseases. To see if there was a connection, the team compared 1,688 diseases with the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7 million patients between 1985 and 2013 that had been treated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Through that data, the Columbia University scientists ruled out 1,600 potential health risk/birth month associations, confirmed 39 previously reported links and uncovered 16 new pairings.
The overall finding was that those born in May have the lowest risk for chronic diseases, while those born in October and November had the highest. Other interesting discoveries were that the risk for cardiovascular disease was highest in the early spring (March + April) and those born in the early fall (October + November) saw a high correlation for respiratory illness as well as reproductive diseases and neurological diseases.
Have no fear, fall and early winter babies, as the researchers want to make it clear that though there are correlations, the risk is not huge enough that parents need to be moving around that potential due date on their calendar.
What are your thoughts on this birth month study? Let us know in the comments.