The month of birth indicates the risk of suffering some diseases.

A study shows the correlation between these two variables.

Some researchers believe that the month in which we are born is related to tendencies that mark our health and the way we relate to our environment.. This type of theory emphasizes the importance of the stimuli received during the months of gestation and the first days after birth, and this sequence of stimuli could be different depending on the period of the year they cover.

The month of birth indicates the risk of suffering some diseases.

In line with this type of hypothesis, a group of researchers at Columbia University set out to investigate whether there is a correlation between the month of birth and the risk of suffering from a list of diseases. Their findings seem to be in line with what they wanted to demonstrate and have been published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Statistical stuff

This team of researchers used as raw material the information already existing in databases and looked for correlations between the time of birth and the propensity to each disease by applying an algorithm through the application of an algorithm.

The statistical data analysis served to prove that, of the 1,688 diseases presented by the sample (1,749,400 people born between 1985 and 2013 registered in New York databases), 55 were related to the birth month of the group of individuals. Moreover, of those 55 correlations between time of birth and disease risk, 19 had already been found in previous studies and 20 are related to those 19.

Months and diseases

The correlations of disease risk found are, for each month of birth, as follows:

1. JanuaryCardiomyopathy and hypertension.

2. Februarylung or bronchial cancer.

3. MarchMarch : arrhythmias, Heart failure and mitral valve disorder.

4. Aprilangina.

5. May :May : no increased risk of any disease due to being born in this month.

6. JunePreinfarction syndrome.

7. July: asthma.

8. AugustAs in the group of those born in May, no particular risk of any disease was found.

9. September: vomiting.

10. October: sexually transmitted diseases, chest infections and insect bites.

11. NovemberNovember : arrhythmia, mitral valve disorder and lung cancer.

12. December :only bruises.

Don't set alarm bells ringing!

These data should be taken critically. As has already been said a thousand times, correlation does not mean causationThere is nothing to indicate that the fact of being born in one month or another implies that we all have some of these diseases in a latent state, waiting to manifest themselves.

This study simply uses the month of birth as a criterion to predict the frequency with which certain diseases occur in the group of those born at each time of the year. However, it is not a case study: it focuses on a collective phenomenon that can only be interpreted as a trend that can only appear in very large groups of people.

Bibliographical references:

• Boland, M. R., Shahnn, Z., Madigan, D., Hripsack, G., & Tatonetti, N. P. (2015). Birth Month Affects Lifetime Disease Risk: A Phenome-Wide Method. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, accessed online. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv046