Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that birth weight helps decrease the chances of getting tuberculosis.

In a study, researchers found out that every 1.1 pounds of birth weight lowered the chances of getting TB later in life by 46 per cent among identical twins.

According to Eduardo Villamor, study author and associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health, there was a reduction of 87per cent in tuberculosis risk for each pound in males, whereas in girls the risk was reduced by 16 per cent for every 1.1 pounds of birth weight.

TB affects almost one-third of the world’s population that makes these findings important. It is second to HIV in deaths due to a single infection.

Villamor said, "Prenatal exposure to environmental insults, including maternal malnutrition, could program what happens later on in terms of our immune responses to infection, possibly through programming of the immune system.”

The study called ‘Evidence for an effect of fetal growth on the risk of tuberculosis’ will appear in the Journal Infectious Disease on February 1.