Is this new news or have you been taught this in biology?

Question

A Man's Shelf Life
As men age, their fertility decreases and the health risks to their unborn offspring skyrocket.
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070830-000004.xml
it's very feasible that paternal age is a major predictor of autism," asserts Harry Fisch, MD.

He is one of the nation's leaders in the diagnosis and treatment of male infertility and microsurgical vasectomy reversal. Dr. Fisch is director of the Male Reproductive Center and directs urologic microsurgery in the Department of Urology at Columbia University Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He is also professor of clinical urology at Columbia University, where he was recently named Teacher of the Year in his department.

The greater threat to offspring is the less flagrant DNA damage that gets passed on. Experts like Muller believe that a substantial amount of the damage is caused by free radicals—the destructive, highly reactive particles produced by our body's energy factories, the mitochondria, as we metabolize oxygen. "One of the scariest things we're finding is that sperm DNA is damaged by even low levels of free radicals. Whereas high levels of damage lead to infertility, miscarriages, or spontaneous abortions, low levels chew up the DNA but the sperm can still fertilize," Muller states.

Complicating matters, sperm is incapable of repairing itself; Muller and his colleague Narendra P. Singh find that as men age, natural processes such as apoptosis—in which damaged cells naturally commit suicide to protect the body—become increasingly less efficient and less able to eliminate damaged DNA. Resulting defects may not show up until offspring are adults and it's too late to trace the cause.

"In short, the biggest genetic threat to society may not be infertility but fertile old men," says University of Wisconsin in Madison geneticist James F. Crow.


By the time females reach their teen years, their eggs have already been formed—just one new egg matures each month. Men, on the other hand, produce millions of sperm cells every time they ejaculate. After each ejaculation, they must literally replicate those cells, and each replication multiplies the chance for a DNA "copy error"—a genetic chink in the sperm DNA. The more ejaculations a man produces, the greater the chance for chinks to arise, leading to increased point mutation and thus increased infertility and birth defects. While a woman's reproductive capacity halts more or less abruptly after all her eggs have been used up somewhere in their forties or fifties, men experience a longer, more gradual winnowing and disintegration. "

Fertility docs cover this information up. It has been known since the 1950s.

Nonetheless, a virtual tidal wave of recent research has made it irrefutable: Not only does male fertility decrease decade by decade, especially after age 35, but aging sperm can be a significant and sometimes the only cause of severe health and developmental problems in offspring, including autism, schizophrenia, and cancer. The older the father, the higher the risk. But what's truly noteworthy is not that infertility increases with age—to some degree, we've known that all along—but rather that older men who can still conceive may have such damaged sperm that they put their offspring at risk for many types of disorders and disabilities.
Some sperm donors banks limit donor age to 35 and in South Africa and Israel to 30 because they know that sperm collect mutations with each division and with toxins.

Donor Standards
http://www.nwcryobank.com/donor_standards.asp

Answer 1

it brings tears to my eyes. I know it's true.

My nephew has autism. He is the product of artificial insemination, the donor was in his 50s.

It's disturbing to know what we know now. And how easy it could have been prevented.

It's a major wakeup call for these 'fertility docs'.

Answer 2

This is not news. It's well documented that as you age your genes degenerate. Meaning that the older you have kids, the more likely you are to have a baby that could any number of genetic disorders. This isn't exclusive to the man, it includes women as well. This is because both men and women's genes deteriorate as they get older and the child gets half of the mother's and half of the fathers genes.

Regards,

Brandon

Answer 3

Doesn't sound right to me. The reason a woman has a limit to her eggs is because they have been around since before she was even born so the risk of mutation from environmental exposures increases as time goes by. The male produces sperm throughout their mature years so the sperm haven't been exposed to a lifetime of risks.

Answer 4

I've never heard that before. It doesn't make sense to me because a man's dna doesn't (normally) change as he ages, and the child he produces is only a product of his dna, so I don't see how that could have anything to do with it.

Answer 5

Yes this is news to me and I dont believe it.

Answer 6

no it's not