The disease calender: New US study establishes link between birth month and diseases

Washington: People born in the month of March face a higher risk of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and mitral valve disorder, according to a new US study. The study also indicated that asthma risk is greatest for babies born in July and October in the US. Columbia University scientists developed a computational method to investigate the relationship between birth month and disease risk. The researchers used this algorithm to examine New York City medical databases and found 55 diseases that correlated with the season of birth. Researchers found that 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,” said study senior author Nicholas Tatonetti, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). The study compared 1,688 diseases against the birth dates and medical histories of 1.7 million patients treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/CUMC between 1985 and 2013. The study was published in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. With inputs from PTI [caption id=“attachment_2288996” align=“alignleft” width=“825”] A Firstpost infographic based on the study. Firstpost[/caption]