Your Birthday Can Affect Your Health

For some reason, certain diseases are more common in people born during certain times of the year. Some of these connections are truly baffling?like why schizophrenia is more common in people born in the winter, and learning disabilities are more common for those born in the spring.

Marc Lallanilla writes in abcnews.com that your mother’s exposure to seasonal diseases like the flu could be one factor. Dr. Marvin J. Bittner says, “Some infectious diseases have a seasonal variation. The reason for these variations is not entirely understood. In other cases, seasonal variation leads to insights. For example, mosquito-borne diseases vary with mosquito populations and factors such as weather.” For instance, prenatal or newborn exposure to pollen in the spring could lead to respiratory ailments.

Neurological and behavioral disorders like schizophrenia and ADHD (hyperactivity in children) might be linked to exposure to a virus during the second trimester, when brain development begins.

Doctors in England noticed that when African immigrants had babies in the U.K., they had a higher incidence of schizophrenia than their children who were born in a warmer climate, and they think a lack of vitamin D from sunlight while in the womb might be the answer.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Alzheimer’s patients and schizophrenics are more likely to have been born in January, February and March. People who develop Lou Gehrig’s disease (the disease scientist Stephen Hawking has) are more likely to be born in the spring, from April through June.

Bipolar people (this used to be called manic-depression) are more often born in the cold months of February and March, but also arrive in the spring, in April. Epilepsy most affects those born in the winter or early spring, as well. Autism is more often seen in people born in March, but is also more common in August births.

Kids with learning disabilities or dyslexia are often born in the spring or early summer, while kids with ADHD (for which they are often given Ritalin) are often born in September (when school starts).

Bowel diseases are more common in summer births, and diabetes turns up most in summer births as well. Eczema and asthma may be a problem if you?re born in the fall. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affects more of the people born in spring or early summer (March through June). Parkinson’s is more common in those born in April and May, and an anorexic is more likely to be born in June.

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