Why do people believe that genetic disease is not caused by older fathers?

Question

Do old dogs or cats have healthy puppies, kittens. Do older horses have healthy offspring?

Answer 1

People are wrong; there is evidence that older fathers have a higher likelihood of having a child with a genetic abnormality.

Answer 2

An old man can pass on a genetic disease but he is not more likely to do so. At one point in time it was believed that odler people stood a greater risk. However, this was do to the odds. Older men frequently have more children than a young man. If your genetic code indicates you have a 1 and 4 chance of having a child with Downs Syndrome, the more children you have the more likely to have one.

Answer 3

The relationship between paternal age and "genetic" diseases is complex. For example, the risk of autism in a child is higher with advanced paternal age. Although autism and a myriad other medical conditions are due at least partly to genetics...environment also plays a varying role to the overall risk of developing the disorder. For a given disease, like autism or schizophrenia, multiple genes each having a small effect, combine with environmental risks to produce the illness. In terms of paternal age, one possibility is that since sperm are generated thoughout life there maybe an increased risk of errors during the formation of the sperm with advanced age leading to genetic abnormalities.

Answer 4

Well Honey, I'm going to give you a little lesson in biology: First you genetics don't change. You can't change your biology from the time your born. You are what you are no matter how old you are. This business you and several others are talking about is a bunch of rubbish.
An older man, animal has the same genetics he had when he was young, it doesn't change.

Your body may change, you may get stronger, weaker, more ill but, your genetics will always be the same.

Answer 5

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Genetic disease in the offspring of older fathers ?? ummm ..!
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Autosomal dominant genetic diseases may result from the transmission of a trait by a carrier parent or from gene mutation in one of the gametes from which the child develops. The mean age of fathers of affected persons has been found to be greater than expected for several autosomal dominant diseases due to new mutations. To assess the clinical importance of this observation, the relative and absolute frequencies of offspring with autosomal dominant diseases due to mutation in the sperm from fathers of various ages have been calculated. The relative frequency of new autosomal dominant mutations in children increases logarithmically with paternal age during the usual years of fatherhood. The absolute frequency of autosomal dominant disease due to new mutations among the offspring of fathers who are 40 years of age or older is estimated to be at least 0.3 to 0.5%. This risk is many times greater than that for children of young fathers and is similar in magnitude to the risk of Down syndrome among the offspring of 35- to 40-year-old mothers. Thus, it is good public health policy to recommend that both men and women complete their family a before age 40, if possible

Genetic risks related to paternal age should be of interest to clinical andrologists counselling older men who wish to father a child. Theoretically, the number of (pre-meiotic) mitotic cell divisions during spermatogenesis and their remarkable increase with ageing compared with oogenesis would be in favour of genetic risks for the offspring of older men. But for numerical and structural chromosomal anomalies, such an influence of paternal age has not been found. However, in several autosomal dominant disorders affecting three specific genes (fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 and 3, RET proto-oncogene) the risk for a child to be affected increases with paternal age at time of birth. For other autosomal dominant -X chromosomal dominant or recessive disorders, the available data are sufficient to support the concept of a positive relationship between paternal age and de novo gene mutations. Studies analysing gene sequences of affected children and their parents would allow further evaluation of this topic. The impact of paternal age on disorders with a complex genetic background, however, is a matter of debate. A significant effect of paternal age could not be shown for nonfamilial Alzheimer's disease, congenital heart defects, nonfamilial schizophrenia, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or prostate cancer.
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Answer 6

why not