This Is The Healthiest Month To Be Born In

You may or may not believe your zodiac sign holds any sway over your health and happiness. Either way, new research indicates that the time of year when you were born has more to do with your well-being than we previously believed. A new study from the Columbia University Medical Center, published in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association, shows that your risk for 55 diseases — including asthma, ADHD, and heart disease — is linked with the month in which you were born. Congrats, May babies! You hit the birth-month jackpot: You have the lowest risk across these 55 diseases. October kids, meanwhile, have the greatest risk. The study's researchers got disease-specific as well, analyzing 1.7 million New York patients and 1,600 diseases over a 28-year time frame to discern that November babies are at highest risk of ADHD, October and July babies have the highest rates of asthma, and March babies suffer the highest rates of several heart diseases. Just because you were born in May, of course, is no reason to ditch your healthy habits. "The risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise," cautions Nicholas Tatonetti, PhD, Columbia University Medical Center assistant professor and the study's senior author. Still, if you're one of the approximately 27 million Americans who celebrated a birthday last month, you can feel a little more special about your special day.