Confirmed: Kids of Older Dads At High Risk of Mental Illness. But Why?

Children of older mothers, scientists have long known, are at higher risk for certain genetic disorders such as Down syndrome. But the father's age is matters, too. As a father's age increases, research shows, so does his child's risk of mental illness, schizophrenia and autism in particular. In Scientific American, Nicole Grey explores the link between a father's age and his child's health, as well as the tricky questions about what mechanisms are behind the that link: genes, epigenetic changes, environment, or some combination of the three. Some researchers suggest that epigenetic changes, alterations in how genes are expressed, that occur over a man's lifetime may be passed down to his children, triggering such diseases, or that genetic mutations in sperm may make children more vulnerable to developing psychiatric disorders, rather than directly causing the condition. And for all the worry about genetic changes in a woman's eggs once she ...