Let’s begin the new year by examining this very interesting study:

New Key to Autism
September 25, 2006

[…] The Archives study took advantage of the extraordinarily complete health records of over 300,000 Israeli men and women who underwent a complete health assessment when they were 17-year olds — draft age. This gave researchers a good way to determine the incidence of autism in the population. The researchers had access to intellectual, medical and psychiatric evaluations of almost all Israeli boys and three-quarters of girls. (Their identities were kept secret, however.) For most individuals, the father’s age at birth was known.

Although boys were more likely to develop autism than girls, the risk for girls also increased as fathers got older. When fathers were young, about 1 in 6 children with autism were girls. After fathers passed the 40 year-old mark, the proportion of girls with autism rose to about 1 in 3. This suggests that the genetic factors in play for offspring of older fathers are different from those for offspring of younger fathers.

By Michael Craig Miller, M.D.
Harvard Medical School

If you’d like, take a look at the rest of the article, since that tiny clip doesn’t come anywhere near doing it justice.

Last night I got an email from a lady named Les, who has a very interesting blog … “Age of the Father and Health of Future Generations,” which showcases a paper written by the late Leslie B. Raschka M.D., who was an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. The paper deals with the same issue as Dr. Miller’s paper:

Conclusions: The age of the father is an important determinant of the health of future generations. Children conceived by fathers older than 36 years of age are at increased risk for genetic illness due to recent mutation in the male germ cell.

The genetic illness of a child could originate in a mutation related to the age of the father or to a mutation in the spermatogenesis caused by ageing in previous generations. The ageing process in the male is an important, probably the most important, cause of genetic illness in human populations.

In my (very) limited knowledge, I have to surmise that if an older mother is more likely to produce children with Down Syndrome, then why would it not be possible that sperm from an older man might not also cause chromosomal errors?

In my extra research, I ran across the following article in WebMD: Dad’s Age Raises Down Syndrome Risk, Too … interesting! Why not Autism?

The idea that infant vaccinations were causing a rise in Autism held my attention until I did more research. I had all of my own children vaccinated, and encouraged them as adults to get the later vaccines, which were not offered when they were babies - like the Hepatitis Vaccines. However, even if I do not relate it to vaccines, I do believe that there is, indeed, a rise in Autism … and I also believe that there has to be a reason! Couples are beginning to have children at an older age … they’re putting their education, careers - etc. - first, and putting off having children until they’re more financially stable. It’s not unusual to see first time mothers in their 30’s … and older … married to men in their 40’s … or older. Could our trend toward putting off starting families be contributing to the rise in Autistic children?

Les has asked me to put a poll up for my readers … so please take a minute to take the poll at the bottom of this post! Here are the questions she’s asked:

“[…] if it were really true that older fathering was related to all kinds of diseases and conditions with “mysterious genetic” causes including cancers, do you think that freezing semen when younger for later, fathering, is a good idea? Would you do it or support your son in the expense of it?”

Do you believe that Drs. Miller and Raschka are all wet? Do you believe that their studies and conclusions have merit? What do you think of the questions that Les has asked us, just above? Would freezing semen be a good way of avoiding possible birth defects?

Addendum

Les sent me the following articles on how long sperm can be safely frozen, and there’s also information about the health of the children born from donor’s frozen sperm:

Baby born from sperm frozen for 21 years
Follow-up studies of children born after frozen sperm donation
Live birth with sperm cryopreserved for 21 years prior to cancer treatment: Case report
The History of Semen Cryopreservation (Cryogenic Laboratories)
History of Semen Cryopreservation (Tyler Medical Clinic

Dr. Aidan Charles shared the following, intensely interesting article with us:

When Two Minds Think Alike. It proposes that people who have autistic children may well carry similar traits themselves, and be attracted to each other because of those very traits …

Healthpsych has also written a post on this subject, and put up a poll. Take a look!

Results to Date

15 Reponses total by January 10, 2007 - 11 PM eastern time

Do you believe that older men who father children can cause increased birth defects?

(10) Yes, all sorts
(5) No Response Recorded

Do you believe that freezing sperm would be a solution to the above mentioned problem?3
(3) Yes, freezing sperm to be used later could help prevent the damage.
(7) No, freezing sperm presents a whole different set of problems
(5) No Response Recorded

Would you like to explain your choices, or expound on your ideas?

1) We’re clearly not talking about a massive dramatic epidemiological crisis here. It’s one more tiny factor in a whole universe of tiny factors.

2) The cells that divide to create sperm can accumulate DNA damage over time, and as a result lead to children who have genetic disorders.

3) My observations come from working with animals. It seems to be a higher risk of defects lower live birth rates etc. when one or more of the parents (canine) are over the age of 6. Of course I haven’t done an official study. These are my observations. Frozen sperm has been used for decades in livestock and is becoming increasingly more frequent in canines. While most sperm is collected when the donor is young there doesn’t seem to be a problem with any of the offspring. At least there does not appear to be any higher occurrence than what is usually observed. However I do not support frozen sperm for humans. This is due to moral issues and concerns that I have. Another reason is that I believe that children should have fairly young parents to raise them. If we began freezing sperm and delayed parenting to such a degree that the parents were of such an age that they might not be able to raise their own children into adulthood; either due to death illness or physical limitations. Additionally the advanced age of the parents almost certainly guarantees that the child will also be deprived of an important component in their childhood: grandparents. With the continuous decline in the nuclear family as we see it today frozen sperm could most certainly compound the situation. We are talking about our future. Who is going to raise them and provide them emotional stability?

4) Freezing sperm wouldn’t help if “Mom” is older when she gets pregnant.

5) Interesting material and interesting theory. I think it is like so many such theories mainly theory. But I do have a question. Why when I was a child in the 1950s did one never hear of autism? Obviously it existed but did it largely remain undiagnosed or is it one of those things like peanut allergy that seems to have proliferated hugely? Just curious.

(10) No Response Recorded