Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 30/08/2012 22:39:00
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Ageist as it is, older fathers are deleterious to their offspring's DNA, placing them at increased risk of mental and other illnesses.
Read the whole story on our website by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news-archive/news/2642/)
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Interesting.
I know that some major chromosomal disorders such as Down's syndrome are due to maternal age.
It is interesting to see that sperm mutations may be related to paternal age.
So, was this a study of children (live births), vs a study of sperm (of which not all would be viable)?
It is possible that part of the reason for the large number of sperm is simply "survival of the fittest" which would help eliminate some of the mutations, as well as select for the best chromosome pairing. And, then again, later disorders that would lead to miscarriages further reducing the number of mutations being passed on.