Paternal age effect

For effects associated with mother's age, see Advanced maternal age.

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.