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Older Dads and Autism
Does Paternal Age
Increase the Risk? By Teri Brown
Increase the Risk?
In the highly charged mystery that is autism, researchers have found another small piece to the puzzle. A recent study by Dr. Abraham Reichenberg of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, found that children of men age 40 and older have a significantly increased risk of having autism spectrum disorders (AST)compared with those whose fathers are younger than 30.
The study has been well received in academic circles, but some mothers with autistic children are a bit more skeptical.
"Informal polls taken among thousands of parents of children with autism on the Internet groups showed that 78 percent plus of the fathers were in their 30s and under when they conceived their affected child," says Kim Stagliano, mother of three autistic girls from Trumbell, Conn. "My husband was under 40 when two of our three daughters with ASD were conceived. The study helps bolster the viewpoint that autism is strictly due to genetics, momentarily taking the heat off the environmental trigger hypotheses that continues to gain attention and credence."
Rachel Gurevich from Jerusalem, Israel, agrees. "In all the autism research I've seen, I never heard of the age of the father making a difference," Gurevich says. "My first thought is that age being the factor in this study may be further proof it's an environmental issue. Until they actually identity a gene for autism, I don't see how they can say it's for sure genetic."
The study tracked several hundred people in Israel and found that the odds of autism spectrum disorder were nearly six times greater among children of men age 40 and older than those of men 29 years and younger. Older age among mothers was not associated with autism after researchers factored in the effect of the father's age.