New Study Backs Parent Age-Autism Link

[Guest guest]

New Study Backs Parent Age-Autism Link

(Reuters Health) By Anne Harding http://tinyurl.com/sqhh

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Advanced parental age does indeed appear

to boost autism risk in children, and the risk is seen with both

mothers and fathers, new research shows.

" What we found was that actually it's both parents age, and when

you control for one parent's age you still see the effect of the other

parent's age, and vice versa, " Dr. Maureen Durkin of the University of

Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, the lead

researcher of the study reported in the American Journal of

Epidemiology, told Reuters Health.

The findings may offer clues to understanding the causes of

autism and why it's on the rise, but they shouldn't be used to guide

family planning decisions, Durkin said. Even though the oldest child

born to two older parents is three times as likely to be autistic than

a middle or youngest child with younger parents, she explained,

there's still a 97 percent chance that the higher-risk child will be

perfectly fine. " The vast majority of children don't develop autism, "

she emphasized.

Several studies have suggested links between a father's age or

the age of both parents and a child's likelihood of having autism. The

current study included twice as many autism cases as any other

research on this issue to date, which made it possible to tease out

the effects of both maternal and paternal age.

The researchers looked at 253,347 children born in 1994 at 10

sites included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's

Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. There were

1,251 children who met standard criteria for an autism spectrum

disorder at age 8 for whom information on both parents' age was available.

After the researchers accounted for factors that might influence

the results, they found that children born to mothers aged 35 and

older were 30 percent more likely than those whose mothers were 25 to

29 years old to have been diagnosed with autism. Having a father who

was 40 or older boosted risk by 40 percent.

The effects of parental age were additive; firstborn kids with

two older parents were at more than triple the risk of autism compared

to third or later children born to mothers 20 to 34 years old and

fathers under 40.

Past studies have suggested that more educated moms are more

likely to have autistic kids, but Durkin and her team found this was

because these women were older than less educated women, not because

they had more years of schooling.

There are several possible explanations for why older moms and

dads are at greater risk of having autistic children, the researchers

say. Older parents have had a longer time to sustain genetic damage to

their sperm or egg cells, as well as to store up environmental

contaminants in their bodies.

They are also more likely to have used assisted reproduction

technologies, which have been tied to poor pregnancy outcomes. And

there could just be something about the behavioral traits or

psychological makeup of people who wait to have children that boosts

autism risk in their offspring.

The findings could also help explain why autism appears to be on

the rise in the US, the researchers add, since the percentage of

children who are born to mothers 35 and older and fathers 40 and older

has risen steadily since 1980.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, December 1, 2008.

[Guest guest]

" Past studies have suggested that more educated moms are more

likely to have autistic kids, but Durkin and her team found this was

because these women were older than less educated women, not because

they had more years of schooling. "

Why is it that so many of these articles have such poorly written statements in

them? Doesn't anybody proofread their work anymore?

Are we to assume that Durkin controlled for eduation by comparing a sub group of

women who had comparable levels of schooling and still found the same

comparative rates of autism incidence as they did on the larger study?

I wonder if Durkin bothered to check the vaccination records of the children in

the study or compared where they lived to the prevailing downwind plumes of

various polluting industries?

[Guest guest]

I think they can only get desperate, junior reporters to write this

stuff. The older, more educated reporters might steer clear of the

controversy, in light of which way the wind is blowing.

The study probably didn't control for many things.

It's " extrascientific " -- clearly motivated by factors outside of pure

scientific inquiry. Like $$$$$$

>

> " Past studies have suggested that more educated moms are more

> likely to have autistic kids, but Durkin and her team found this was

> because these women were older than less educated women, not because

> they had more years of schooling. "

>

> Why is it that so many of these articles have such poorly written

statements in them? Doesn't anybody proofread their work anymore?

>

> Are we to assume that Durkin controlled for eduation by comparing a

sub group of women who had comparable levels of schooling and still

found the same comparative rates of autism incidence as they did on

the larger study?

>

> I wonder if Durkin bothered to check the vaccination records of the

children in the study or compared where they lived to the prevailing

downwind plumes of various polluting industries?

>