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posted by
LaminatorX
on Friday February 21 2014, @03:00AM
from the totally-getting-snipped-for-my-birthday-this-year dept.
from the totally-getting-snipped-for-my-birthday-this-year dept.
robingHood writes:
"New Scientist Magazine reports on findings that suggest that delaying fatherhood may increase the risk of fathering children with disorders such as Apert syndrome, Autism and Schizophrenia. The article reports that 'although there is a big increase in risk for many disorders, it's a big increase in a very small risk. A 40-year-old is about 50 per cent more likely to father an autistic child than a 20-year-old is, for instance, but the overall risk is only about 1 per cent to start with.' In other words: time to start mating before those tadpoles turn into toads."
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Delayed fatherhood linked to Schizophrenic kids
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You will wish you hadn't.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sbgen on Friday February 21 2014, @04:28PM
Enjoyed reading a well written and logical article on technical papers with peer-reviewed references to back it up (albeit some of them are behind pay-wall ex: articles in Nature Genetics).
That new mutations occur in aging man's sperm is the data; that these mutations affect RAS-pathway in Apert syndrome is data; that RAS affects cell division and proliferation is data. But saying such mutations contribute to enlarged brain/complex psychiatric disorders/(insert your favorite worry here), and may be of concern to the human species due to later child-bearing by men is a leap of faith; it needs data. The article itself makes it clear (on page 3) - the large increase in risk should be kept in perspective, the original risk is pretty rare to begin with. These are really early days in the genetics field about the effect of age on health of progeny; data is accumulating slowly, more so for fathers than for mothers. So I would say there is not sufficient data to panic yet.
Article is worth a read, compliments to the writer and submitter.
Warning: Not a computer expert, but got to use it. Yes, my kind does exist.