(graphic: New York Times)From the New York Times: "When it comes to fertility and the prospect of having normal babies, it has always been assumed that men have no biological clock — that unlike women, they can have it all, at any age.
But mounting evidence is raising questions about that assumption, suggesting that as men get older, they face an increased risk of fathering children with abnormalities. Several recent studies are starting to persuade many doctors that men should not be too cavalier about postponing marriage and children.
Until now, the problems known to occur more often with advanced paternal age were so rare they received scant public attention. The newer studies were alarming because they found higher rates of more common conditions — including autism and schizophrenia — in offspring born to men in their middle and late 40s.
So why don't we see all these older men (Strom Thurmond, Donald Trump, etc.) with their autistic-schizophrenic kids running around? Plus, isn't it sad that now autism and schizophrenia are now "common"?
Definitely with age comes more DNA breaks due to toxins and oxidative stress, but to me, this is yet one more theory "blaming" the parents for autism while no one wants to look at mercury or pesticides or other environmental/pharma factors that may also be responsible for the alarming increase in all sorts of neurological disorders. Old guys have been having kids with younger women for a loooooong time (wasn't May-December from Shakespeare?) and autism and schizophrenia wasn't "common" then.
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