It is anticipated that the findings will have important implications as the disease infects nearly one-third population in the world.
The study may also help understand the mechanisms of the origin and development of the disease better.
TB is a common infectious disease which spreads through air, when the infected people cough, sneeze or spit. The illness usually affects the lungs but it could also affect other body parts.
The symptoms include chronic cough with blood-tinged mucus, fever, night sweats, and weight loss.
Extra pounds at birth reduce TB risk
To determine how much protection extra birth weight could add against contracting tuberculosis later on, researchers at the University of Michigan examined identical twins.
It was found that every additional 1.1 pounds (500 grams) of birth weight reduced the risk of developing the illness by 46 percent among the identical twins in their later life.
The researchers also stated that the association between birth weight and developing tuberculosis is stronger in males than in females.
For every 1.1 pounds of weight, the boys were 87 percent less likely to develop the illness, whereas the proportion was merely 16 percent for the girls.
Eduardo Villamor, study author and associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health 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
... . This study is an example of that."
More research required
According to experts, newborns with low birth weight are more prone to catch infections and develop diseases. Such infants are also at an elevated risk of developing vision and hearing loss, cognitive problems etc.
This study indirectly indicates that infants with low birth weight are at a high risk of developing TB.
The researchers, however, cautioned that no conclusion should be drawn from the findings of the study. More research is needed to find a clear association between prenatal growth and prevention of tuberculosis.
"It's too early to say if insufficient prenatal growth causes clinical tuberculosis, but the findings suggest that may be the case," Villamor said.
The study, "Evidence for an effect of fetal growth on the risk of tuberculosis," will appear in the February edition of the Journal Infectious Disease.
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