Paternal age effect

The paternal age effect is the statistical relationship between the father's age at conception and biological effects on the child.[1] Such effects can relate to birthweight, congenital disorders, life expectancy and psychological outcomes.[2] A 2017 review found that while severe health effects are associated with higher paternal age, the total increase in problems caused by paternal age is low.[3] Average paternal age at birth reached a low point between 1960 and 1980 in many countries and has been increasing since then, but has not reached historically unprecedented levels.[4] The rise in paternal age is not seen as a major public health concern.[3]

The genetic quality of sperm, as well as its volume and motility, may decrease with age,[5] leading the population geneticist James F. Crow to claim that the "greatest mutational health hazard to the human genome is fertile older males".[6]

The paternal age effect was first proposed implicitly by physician Wilhelm Weinberg in 1912[7] and explicitly by psychiatrist Lionel Penrose in 1955.[8] DNA-based research started more recently, in 1998, in the context of paternity testing.

  1. ^ "paternal age effect". Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  2. ^ Amaral, David; Dawson, Geraldine; Geschwind, Daniel (2011). Autism Spectrum Disorders. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537182-6.
  3. ^ a b Nybo Andersen AM, Urhoj SK (February 2017). "Is advanced paternal age a health risk for the offspring?". Fertility and Sterility. 107 (2): 312–8. doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2016.12.019. PMID 28088314.
  4. ^ Willführ, Kai P; Klüsener, Sebastian (3 April 2024). "The current 'dramatically' high paternal ages at childbirth are not unprecedented". Human Reproduction. 39 (6): 1161–1166. doi:10.1093/humrep/deae067. ISSN 0268-1161. PMID 38569672.
  5. ^ Kovac JR, Addai J, Smith RP, Coward RM, Lamb DJ, Lipshultz LI (November 2013). "The effects of advanced paternal age on fertility". Asian Journal of Andrology. 15 (6): 723–8. doi:10.1038/aja.2013.92. PMC 3854059. PMID 23912310.
  6. ^ Crow JF (August 1997). "The high spontaneous mutation rate: is it a health risk?". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 94 (16): 8380–6. Bibcode:1997PNAS...94.8380C. doi:10.1073/pnas.94.16.8380. PMC 33757. PMID 9237985.
  7. ^ Weinberg, W (1912). "Zur Vererbung des Zwergwuchses" [On the inheritance of dwarfism]. Arch Rassen-u Gesell Biol (in German). 9: 710–718. NAID 10017956735.
  8. ^ Penrose LS (August 1955). "Parental age and mutation". Lancet. 269 (6885): 312–3. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(55)92305-9. PMID 13243724.

Developed by StudentB