Autumn babies more likely to hit 100

[xchrom]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22054-autumn-babies-more-likely-to-hit-100.html



Good news for autumn babies: those born between September and November are more likely to live to 100 than those born in other months of the year.

The month in which you are born can influence the environment in which you develop – inside the womb and out. Evidence suggests that this can affect your behaviour and genetics and have a lifelong impact on your health.

Previous research has suggested that those born in the autumn are more likely to live longer than those born at other times of the year. However, researchers could not rule out the possibility that this advantage may have been due to differences between the families studied, such as socioeconomic status, which also influences early environment.

So Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Gavrilova, both at the University of Chicago, gathered data from more than 1500 centenarians born in the US between 1880 and 1895. They compared birth and death information with that of the centenarians' siblings and spouses – the siblings would have experienced a similar early environment and genetic background and the spouses would have a experienced a similar environment in their adult life .

[ejpoeta]

1. that is so odd. I was born in september and have two kids out of

3 with september birthdays.

[HockeyMom]

2. November Baby and Fall is my favorite season

Very depressing living in Florida where there is no Fall.

[seabeyond]

3. oct... fall is my most favorite by far. i can feel it comin.... nt

[HockeyMom]

6. My husband of 38 years is an October Baby

October and November. Yes, we both love Fall.

[handmade34]

4. 100

here I come (October 28)

[phylny]

5. Grandma Frances, born in October,

lived to be 100 years, one month old.

[SheilaT]

7. The big question is,

will that autumn birth longevity effect still hold forty years from now when I turn 100, or 100 years from now for the babies born this year.

I think conditions of pregnancy and in the period immediately after birth have changed so very much in the past century that those findings, while quite interesting, cannot be used to predict who born, say in the past 50 years, will live so long.