"However, parents-to-be should recognize that younger adulthood is the best time for both sexes to have children."
Dr. Simeon Margolis, a professor of both medicine and biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
"DNA damage in sperm is one probable explanation for the genetic abnormalities associated with fatherhood at an older age. The testicular cells that give rise to sperm divide every 16 days; this means that the cells will have split about 840 times by age 50, and with each cell division the chance increases for errors in the sperm's DNA. Examination of sperm from men ages 22 to 80 showed a progressive increase with age in the number of broken DNA strands and other genetic abnormalities"
posted by concerned heart @ 1:12 PM
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3 Comments:
You haven't updated in awhile, so I wanted to tip you off to this news report from yesterday:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-sci-autism12jan12,1,5081058.story?coll=la-health-medicine
Here's paragraph 4:
The genetic defect was found in children with autism but not in their parents, indicating that it was a spontaneous mutation that occurred sometime after fertilization. The location, called 16p11.2, is what is known as a genetic "hot spot," meaning it is unusually susceptible to such mutations.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/
la-sci-autism12jan12,1,5081058.story?coll=la
-health-medicine
(In case the link is showing up cut off for you too.)
Thank you Banjo Time and please add to this blog as I have been unable to do so. Your story about the finding of the spontaneous (de novo) mutation in autism is crucial to understanding that autism is very often non-familial and due to the spontaneous sperm mutations and the age of the dad at conception.
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