Comments on: Confirmed: Kids of Older Dads At High Risk of Mental Illness. But Why?

By: Pippa

Pippa — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:12:28 +0000

I agree, Rob. We shouldn’t forget that the ‘risk’ of having a perfectly normal typical child is very high – most older Dad’s have kids that have no problems at all. Furthermore autistic children can grow up to be fascinating adults – Einstein comes to mind. My son was classically autistic and, yes, he did give us a run for our money and was a lot of hard work to raise, but now he is in University and on the Dean’s list every year so far. If I had screened him out or avoided having him the world would be a poorer place. He’s still more than a bit eccentric but people tend to assume that’s just because he’s so bright. So, go for it, badniscolez.
Women can look up the absolute risk of having, eg a downs syndrome baby at each age so men should get the same stats when they are choosing parenthood.

By: Sandra Langstaff

Sandra Langstaff — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:08:49 +0000

Does this mean that within a large family, the youngest sibling would have the greatest risk for mental illness? If so, I’m surprised that in other more general psychological studies this hasn’t been found before now.
Also, I wonder what they define as an ‘older’ dad?
@badnicolez : here is a link to an article de-bunking the Autism-caused-by-vaccination myth:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece

By: John M. Tax

John M. Tax — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:55:22 +0000

I’d like to see a graph plotting age of male vs incidence of abnormalities.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:10:28 +0000

@ Rob – It’s clear that badnicolez has found ways apart from parenthood to contribute to the sanity side of the scales. Admirable in my book.

By: Methuselah

Methuselah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:23:02 +0000

And that’s why older men should pair up with much younger women (if they decide to pair up in the first place) to balance out the genetic risks. Same for older women and much younger men.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:54:59 +0000

@badnicolez – It’s people like you that should have kids. You seem to employ rational thought, think beyond yourself, and actually care about the outcome. The benefit outweighs the risks. Civilization needs people like you to reproduce and help their kids grow to become good people too. I’m afraid that the more analisys intelligent and kind people put toward reproduction, the lower the reproduction rate becomes in that population.

By: badnicolez

badnicolez — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:15:40 +0000

Could people waiting to have kids until their thirties and forties explain the spike in autism rates? That would be quite a blow to the anti-vax community. Cumulative genetic damage is the main reason I’m not having kids since I didn’t do so in my twenties.

By: Greg King

Greg King — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:39:51 +0000

It seems to me that epigenetic causes are more likely. If it’s simply random genetic mutations, wouldn’t any factor be equally at risk, not just mental disorders? Also, it would be a lot easier to just sequence the genome of the children and see if any mutations have accumulated, that’s a cheap and viable option within the next few years if not now.