Father’s Age Linked to Autism and Schizophrenia - NYT

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/health/fathers-age-is-linked-to-risk-of-autism\

-and-schizophrenia.html

Father?s Age Is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia

By BENEDICT CAREY

Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops

autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more

numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday,

in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The

age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study

found.

Experts said that the finding was hardly reason to forgo fatherhood

later in life, though it might have some influence on reproductive

decisions. The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range

of 2 percent, at most, and there are other contributing biological

factors that are entirely unknown.

But the study,

<http://www.nature.com/news/fathers-bequeath-more-mutations-as-they-age-1.11247>

published online in the journal Nature, provides support for the

argument that the surging rate of autism diagnoses over recent decades

is attributable in part to the increasing average age of fathers,

*/which could account for as many as 20 to 30 percent of cases/*.

The findings also counter the longstanding assumption that the age of

the mother is the most important factor in determining the odds of a

child having developmental problems....