A major source of new mutations in humans is the male germ line. In sperm, mutation rates monotonically increase as the father's age at conception adv

CDC stats 2004


Average paternal age keeps going up and up and so do neurocognitive disorders - Autism, etc.
As in previous years, the trend for men having children later in life is continuing. The following figures are based on live births per 1,000 men. The number of births in the 35-39 age group increased from 60.2 to 61.7. Also increasing, but less dramatically, was for the 40-44 age group, which rose from 23.4 to 23.9. Baio's age group, 45-49, also saw a slight increase.Looking at the larger trend, going back 20 years, in 1984 there were 46 in the 35-39 age group and only 17.8 in the 40-44 group. (all of this is in table 21 of the report)The CDC lumps everyone over 55 in one age group. That has remained steady for more than ten years, at 0.3 births per 1,000
Labels: age of father in 2004

"The optimal time for a man to father a healthy child is the same as for a woman — 25 or so," says Dolores Malaspina, a psychiatry professor at New York University and coauthor of the study.
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1: Eur Psychiatry. 2007 Jan;22(1):22-6. Epub 2006 Dec 4.
Links
Paternal ages below or above 35 years old are associated with a different risk of schizophrenia in the offspring.
Wohl M, Gorwood P.
INSERM U675, 16 rue Henri Huchard 75018 Paris, France.
BACKGROUND: A link between older age of fatherhood and an increased risk of schizophrenia was detected in 1958. Since then, 10 studies attempted to replicate this result with different methods, on samples with different origins, using different age classes. Defining a cut-off at which the risk is significantly increased in the offspring could have an important impact on public health. METHODS: A meta-analysis (Meta Win) was performed, assessing the mean effect size for each age class, taking into account the difference in age class references, and the study design. RESULTS: An increased risk is detected when paternal age is below 20 (compared to 20-24), over 35 (compared to below 35), 39 (compared to less than 30), and 54 years old (compared to less than 25). Interestingly, 35 years appears nevertheless to be the lowest cut-off where the OR is always above 1, whatever the age class reference, and the smallest value where offspring of fathers below or above this age have a significantly different risk of schizophrenia. CONCLUSION: No threshold can be precisely defined, but convergent elements indicate ages below or above 35 years. Using homogeneous age ranges in future studies could help to clarify a precise threshold.