A person's birth month could determine some of his or her health risks, USA Today reported based on a massive study from Columbia University Medical Center, in which scientists reviewed New York medical databases for 1.7 million patients.

The researchers determined that 55 diseases are partially linked to an individual's season of birth; overall, they found that people born in May had the lowest disease risk and those born in October the highest, the university said in a statement.

"This data could help scientists uncover new disease risk factors," noted senior author Nicholas Tatonetti, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center.

But "it's important not to get overly nervous about these results because even though we found significant associations ... the risk related to birth month is relatively minor when compared to more influential variables like diet and exercise," the scientist cautioned.

According to the study, people born in March have the highest risk of heart disease, while those born in September and October show a propensity of respiratory ailments. Early winter babies, meanwhile, have a likelihood of developing reproductive and neurological diseases, USA Today detailed.

The Columbia University team pointed out that the new data are consistent with previous research, with scientists mentioning an earlier Danish study found that the peak risk for asthma there was in the months (May and August) when Denmark's sunlight levels are similar to New York's (July and October).

In fact, the study authors recalled in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association that speculation on the subject goes back all the way to Antiquity, WGN noted.

"Hippocrates described a connection between seasonality and disease nearly 2500 years ago, 'for knowing the changes of the seasons ... how each of them takes place, he (the clinician) will be able to know beforehand what sort of a year is going to ensue ... for with the seasons the digestive organs of men undergo a change," they wrote.

Overall, the research ruled out more than 1,600 associations and confirmed 39 seasonal links previously reported in the medical literature; it also uncovered 16 new associations.