6 Comments

Men, get your families started early

June 6, 2006 by in Random with 6 Comments

Male sperm has a limited shelf life, or should I say… Best if used by period:

Men are more likely to father dwarves as they grow older due to an age-related genetic mutation in their sperm, a new study finds.

They found that the likelihood of acquiring a genetic mutation that causes achondroplasia, a type of dwarfism, increases by about 2 percent per year, beginning in a male’s mid-20s.

They also found that the DNA strands in sperm are more likely to “fragment,” or acquire random breaks, as men get older. Other studies have shown that DNA fragmentation can reduce a sperm’s chances of fertilizing an egg.

2% per year?! So lets say the prime age is 25, if a male decides to start a family at 35, that same male has a 20% chance of having a child with dwarfism?


  • Capitalist

    No, no, no…
    I agree it’s badly worded… but it’s just saying that a 35 year old male is 20% more likely to father a dwarf than a 25 year old male…
    So lets say a 25 year old male has a 0.00010% chance of fathering a dwarf, then a 35 year old male will have a 0.00012% chance.
    So relax and enjoy your youth!

  • Capitalist

    Oh…. since that worry has been dispelled… Let’s all get back to worrying about the fragile environment, and that evil scourge called progress… ;)

  • http://... Nic

    What about women? I heard the older they get the more likely to have a kid with Down’s Syndrome

  • Emory

    i don’t know, 2% sounds like a lot :P Typo maybe?? That seems unbelievably high, perhaps they meant .2% or something like that :P

  • Andy

    Women are more likely to have kids with Down’s syndrome as they age because the eggs in their ovaries are formed at their birth, and gradually released over their lifetimes; they aren’t held in as perfect a “suspended animation” as would be nice, so some funny stuff happens. Specifically, chromosome 13 is replicated, so that there are three copies instead of the normal two. So, why aren’t there other disorders for each of the other chromosomes? Because #13 is the smallest; when the same thing happens to any other chromosome, the embryo/fetus can’t be brought to term.

    A man’s sperm, however, are produced throughout life – so, the question is, why the incidence of *this* mutation, and not just every mutation of the same extent, increase over time.

  • Kellie

    The 2% they’re referring to does not add up to 20% by the age of 35…if a man had a 1% chance at age 25 then he would have a 1.02% chance at 26, not a 3% chance…as it’s a 2% increase over what they already had. If that makes any sense (I’m not good at explaining things).

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