Advancing Paternal Age and Autism

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I'm not sure how it connects to (if at all) but since it's a local study

it's made the Israeli papers.

Muki

Advancing Paternal Age and Autism

Abraham Reichenberg, PhD; Raz Gross, MD, MPH; Mark Weiser, MD; Michealine

Bresnahan, PhD; Silverman, PhD; Harlap, MBBS; Rabinowitz,

PhD; Cory Shulman, PhD; Dolores Malaspina, MD; Gad Lubin, MD; Haim Y. Knobler,

MD; son, MD; Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:1026-1032. Context Maternal and paternal ages

are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. Objective To examine the

relationship between advancing paternal age at birth of offspring and their risk

of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Design Historical population-based cohort

study. Setting Identification of ASD cases from the Israeli draft board

medical registry. Participants We conducted a study of Jewish persons born in

Israel during 6 consecutive years. Virtually all men and about three quarters of

women in this cohort underwent draft board assessment at age 17 years. Paternal

age at birth was obtained for most of the cohort; maternal age was obtained for

a smaller subset. We used the smaller subset (n = 132 271) with data on both

paternal and maternal age for the primary analysis and the larger subset (n =

318 506) with data on paternal but not maternal age for sensitivity analyses.

Main Outcome Measures Information on

persons coded as having International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision

ASD was obtained from the registry. The registry identified 110 cases of ASD

(incidence, 8.3 cases per 10 000 persons), mainly autism, in the smaller subset

with complete parental age data. Results There was a significant monotonic

association between advancing paternal age and risk of ASD. Offspring of men 40

years or older were 5.75 times (95% confidence interval, 2.65-12.46; P<.001)

more likely to have ASD compared with offspring of men younger than 30 years,

after controlling for year of birth, socioeconomic status, and maternal age.

Advancing maternal age showed no association with ASD after adjusting for

paternal age. Sensitivity analyses indicated that these findings were not the

result of bias due to missing data on maternal age. Conclusions Advanced

paternal age was associated with increased risk of ASD. Possible biological

mechanisms include de novo mutations associated with

advancing age or alterations in genetic imprinting.

Author Affiliations: Department of Psychiatry (Drs Reichenberg, Silverman, and

son) and Seaver Center for Autism Research (Dr Silverman), Mount Sinai

School of Medicine; Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health,

Columbia University (Drs Gross, Bresnahan, Harlap, Malaspina, and Susser); New

York State Psychiatric Institute (Drs Gross, Bresnahan, Malaspina, and Susser),

New York; Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, England (Dr

Reichenberg); and Department of Psychiatry, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel

Hashomer (Drs Weiser and son); School of Social Work, Bar Ilan University,

Ramat-Gan (Dr Rabinowitz); School of Social Work, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

(Dr Shulman); and Medical Corps, Israel Defense Forces, Tel Aviv (Drs Lubin and

Knobler), Israel.

RELATED ARTICLE This Month in Archives of General Psychiatry

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006;63:954.

FULL TEXT

" The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is

not heresy, it's indifference. " Elie Wiesel Oct 1986

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