May Baby? Lucky You. October? Not So Much
Born in May? Lucky for you. How about October? Not so much. Apparently the month you were born in can tell you a lot about your health. (I was born in June. Does it count that I was born four days late, and was actually due in May?) Turns out Columbia University scientists have 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. But before you start panicking, by identifying what's causing disease disparities by birth month, researchers hope to figure out how they might close the gap.Earlier research on individual diseases such as ADHD and asthma suggested a connection between birth season and incidence, but no large-scale studies had been undertaken. This motivated Columbia's scientists to compare diseases against birth dates and health histories. An...