Revealed: why children of older men are more likely to have health problems
Oxford study identifies mutant cells affecting sperm
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
Scientists may have discovered the reason why older men are at greater risk than younger men of fathering a child who develops serious health problems such as congenital deformities, autism, or schizophrenia.
Researchers at Oxford University have found that older men are more likely to harbour a rare form of testicular tumour which may also cause genetic mutations in the DNA of their children, who inherit the faults through their father's sperm. Professor Andrew Wilkie, who led the study published in the journal Nature Genetics, said that clumps of tumour-producing cells form in the testicular tissue which produces the "germ cells" that give rise to sperm.
"We think most men develop these tiny clumps of mutant cells in their testicles as they age. They are rather like moles in the skin, usually harmless in themselves," Professor Wilkie said. "But by being located in the testicle, they also make sperm, causing children to be born with a variety of serious conditions."
Professor Wilkie said that the latest study, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, could help to explain the origin of several serious conditions affecting children, including achondroplasia, which is commonly known as dwarfism, as well as stillbirths.
The work may also help scientists to find the many genes that are involved in common diseases where there is a strong genetic component, such as autism and schizophrenia.
Until recently, it was assumed that only women have to worry about having children in later life but a number of studies in the past decade have shown that as the quality of a man's sperm decreases with age, the risk of him fathering a child with serious health problems increases.
The overall risk for an older father of having a child with a birth defect is estimated to be about 4 per cent, compared with a "background" risk of about 3 per cent. One study carried out in Israel suggested that men who became fathers at the age of 40 or older were nearly six times as likely to have a child with autism compared with men younger than 30 when they became fathers.
Research into schizophrenia suggests that the risk of the illness doubled among the children of older fathers compared with the children of men who became fathers in their 20s.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
Human development doesnt bring about puberty at a young age for nothing!
Sadly, many young people (especially in the West) remain very child-like and unable to act responsibly until they are much, much older, some way past voting age...
If their parent's generation, the baby boomers, hadn't robbed them the story might be different.
Baby boomers received payment for their tertiary education... their children pay.
Baby boomers payed 2.5 times a single salary for their houses in the 70's and are selling them to their kids for 10 times 2 salaries.
Baby boomers received tax cuts under Thatcher and failed to invest in the state... Major continued the lack of investment... Blair can along and started trying to repair the crumbling schools and hospitals using PFI, thus, passing the debt onto his children.
Baby boomers spent the state pension fund and set up a PAYE system funded by their children.
Baby boomers sold the state's assets in under priced public offerings they then bought... they gave themselves tax breaks on the receipts of those sales and British oil finds and earnt handsome rewards for the under valued shares they had bought... their children will now pay much higher energy and water bills.
Baby boomers sold off social housing and awarded themselves tax cuts with the receipts... now their children struggle to buy a single room to live in.
Baby boomers saw that the only way to fund their PAYE pensions was to allow massive immigration to Britain (UK population has risen from 47million in 1945 to 65 million today) and then make it as difficult as possible for their children to emigrate... their children trying to leave the mess their parents have made will find themselves lumbered with UK debt from studying, or if they have worked and saved they will find any transfer of money will be treated as though they are a drug dealer.
Baby boomers falsified the calculation of inflation thus allowing any savings to be eaten away by inflation while they earned themselves large pensions by selling their houses to their children for inflated prices.
If young people now refuse to leave their bedrooms and go out to work to pay for their parent's state pensions I hardly blame them. They should go further... emigrate and leave those irresponsible, selfish, ex-hippies in the trap they meant to be for you.
My comments were about immature and arrested development in the young. But you're right there is another angle/dimension to this whole argument.
Yes, most of us are in the trap you mention, but my tunnel is under construction. I hope to escape soon. Hopefully emerging in some hot tropical country, ideally in a coastal town with warm but moderate climate, and atleast 30m above sea level :)
But apparantly men are fly-by-nights who don't want to settle down ever so they won't listen to browbeating like this. best go back to blaming women eh?
"Scientists may have discovered the reason why older men are at greater risk than younger men of fathering a child who develops serious health problems such as congenital deformities, autism, or schizophrenia."
"Researchers at Oxford University have found that older men are more likely to harbour a rare form of testicular tumour"
If it is a rare form of tumour, then surely it is only **a** reason, not **the** reason?
Perhaps this story is a candidate for Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science"!