title: Season of birth and anorexia nervosa.
abstract: Our aim was to investigate whether there is a season-of-birth effect in anorexia nervosa. In a meta-analysis, we compared the distribution of anorexia births (n = 1293) from four independent UK cohorts to that of the general UK population (n = 21 914 037), using both the Walter & Elwood seasonality and chi-squared tests. We found an excess of anorexia births from March to June (odds ratio (OR) = 1.15, 95% CI 1.03-1.29, P = 0.012) and a deficit from September to October (OR = 0.8, 95% CI 0.68-0.94, P = 0.007). These results indicate that environmental risk factor(s) are operative during gestation or immediately after birth and their identification will be important for disease prevention strategies.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford and Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Giulio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Disanto
authors.forename: Adam E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Handel
authors.forename: Andrea E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Para
authors.forename: Sreeram V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Ramagopalan
authors.forename: Lahiru
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Handunnetthi
mesh_terms: D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012621:Seasons; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology