Columbia Psychiatry Study of Flu & Depression Cited in Time Mag Article

(October 13, 2009)  

In the past decade, there have been several similar studies in the U.S., Britain, Brazil and elsewhere that have come to comparable conclusions. Children born just after flu pandemics have higher rates of physical disability, perform worse in academic tests and have lower income compared with babies born before or after pandemics. "The cohort [born in 1919] has shorter height and lower weight as teenagers, a higher percentage of various health issues," wrote economist Ming-Jen Lin of National Taiwan University in a soon-to-be-published paper looking at the long-term effects of the 1918 flu in Taiwan. <br><br>

Perhaps the most commonly cited paper is one by researchers at <b>Columbia University,</b> which associated a mother''s influenza with her child''s risk of mental illness. In that landmark study, researchers collected blood samples from 12,000 pregnant women in Alameda County, California, between 1959 and 1966 and monitored their sons and daughters for more then three decades. Children born to women who had been infected with flu were three to seven times more likely to develop schizophrenia later in life, the study concluded.

  

Read more at <a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1929814,00.html">Time</a>