By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:46AM GMT 26 Oct 2009
Researchers found that older men were more likely to have the benign tumours, known as spermocytic seminomas, which although harmless on their own, potentially passed on genetic mutations to their sperm, thereby increasing the chances of their offspring have health problems including autism or schizophrenia.
Professor Andrew Wilkie, from Oxford University, who led the study published in the journal Nature Genetics, said clumps of tumour-producing cells form in the testicular tissue which then produced the "germ cells".
“We think most men develop these tiny clumps of mutant cells in their testicles as they age,” he said. “They are rather like moles in the skin, usually harmless in themselves. But by being located in the testicle, they also make sperm - causing children to be born with a variety of serious conditions.”
It had long been believed that only women need worry about having children in later life, but a number of studies in the last 10 years have indicated that the quality of a man's sperm deteriorates as he becomes older. One particular study in Israel found that men who became fathers aged 40 or older were almost six times more likely to have a child compared with autism compared with men younger than 30. Another previous study found every additional five years increased the risk of a child have autism by 3.6 per cent.
"The major implication is for older fathers”, Prof Wilkie said. “We already knew that men in their 50s have a risk of having children with various individually rare genetic disorders — achondroplasia is a well known one — about tenfold higher than men in their early 20s.
“Adding all these risks together, the total additional risk is still only a fraction of per cent per cent because each of these disorders is rare.”
Monday, October 26, 2009
Older fathers linked to genetic disease due to testicular tumours - Telegraph
via telegraph.co.uk
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2 comments:
“Adding all these risks together, the total additional risk is still only a fraction of per cent per cent because each of these disorders is rare.”
Fraction of 1% is anything < 1%.
Autism Rate somewhere between 0.64%(1/156) and 1.28% (1/78).
Rare Adverse Drug Reaction per USP (old definition) < 1:10,000 (< 0.01%).
Could increase also be due to environmental factors such as drugs and other chemicals in food supply etc..
Rule of thumb in Drug AE lawsuits - always blame the patient.
The risk to children of older fathers is not miniscule. Wilhelm Weinberg noticed this in his obstetrics practice in the 19th century. Lionel Penrose studied this in the 1950s and there have been hundred of studies on the paternal age effect and genetic disorders since then. See this blog for the studies: http://how-old-is-too-old.blogspot.com/
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