HOW ABOUT TELLING THE PUBLIC THAT PATERNAL AGE OVER 33 IS A RISK FACTOR FOR DIABETES and DOING MORE PATERNAL AGE STUDIES?

20 million people with diabetes in Europe: a regional health catastrophe!



"Diabetes is relentlessly on the rise in Europe. A bold new European diabetes research strategy is called for to win the war on diabetes - today's complacency will result in tomorrow's defeat and a public health catastrophe of plague-like proportions", said the President of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Prof. Ele Ferrannini from Pisa.

An exceptional event: for the first time such a conference was held in Europe. It was the result of increased political lobbying by major diabetes associations. The meeting was a wake-up call to the European political establishment: act now before it is too late. At last, diabetes is being treated on a par with other major diseases such as cancer.

“The reason for the battle against diabetes is not for the benefit of scientists or doctors, certainly not for politicians but for the million of people who live, or will live with diabetes, and suffer the pain that comes with it. I know that the European Commission is committed to going further. We have progressed, but we have many miles to travel as politicians, as nurses, as doctors, as scientists, and as individuals living with diabetes. I know it is a long road: my neuropathic feet tell me that. They tell me also there must be no weakening of our collective resolve to reach our targets.” Said John Bowis, MEP.

Research funding in the USA, by bodies like NIDDK, JDRF and sponsors from industry can inspire the European Union as they cooperate more closely than in Europe. EASD and its Foundation, the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes (EFSD), will intensify their efforts to find a larger number of organizations to increase funding of diabetes research in Europe and ensure an efficient use of these funds.

The round table discussion closed with the proposal to form a commission, which will consider further initiatives, e.g. the possibility of creating a European fund for diabetes research and to increase the efforts of international coordination in Europe.


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It is overdue the public needs to know about what advancing paternal age is doing to the health of offspring. What is the first known comment in scientific literature?

What is the first mention in historical literature of the paternal age effect?

From a paper, "Human Longevity and Parental Age at Conception",by L.A. Gavrilov and N.S. Gavrilova, 2000

Thank you to Dr. Leonid Gavrilov for sending me the link to his paper because I was wondering what the early written observations of the problems of children of advanced paternal age were.


Wilhelm Weinberg (1862 — 1937)couldn't have been the first to write of the deleterious effects of older fathers on offspring.
The Gavrilovs have a section in their paper on the historical background.

"The first mention in the historical literature suggesting a possible life-shortening effect on offspring of delayed parenting was made by the French naturalist Buffon(1826), who noted that when old men procreate "they often engender monsters, deformed children, still more defective than their father"(see Robine and Allard 1997