Do men have a biological clock?

Do men have a biological clock?
Michael
Is Your Sperm Too Old?Turns out that it’s not just women who have a biological clock.While you've never been against the idea of a serious relationship, you are in no particular rush to become a schlub. The attendant trappings of new fatherhood—the preschool viewings, the sleepless nights, the humiliation of carrying a diaper bag—aren't exactly calling out to you the way, say, another night slinging Pisco sours would. The ever-intensifying din of the proverbial biological clock? That's for the opposite sex to worry about—you know, like periods, frizz and whether Mr. Big will dump "Carrie in the Sex and the City" sequel. As far as you know, your little swim team of DNA carriers will be competing at Olympic level into Letterman age. So what's the rush?"I always thought my biological clock was the 36 hours I had left after I took my Cialis pill," says Zack, a 30-year-old producer in Los Angeles. "That's the only clock I've ever felt ticking." Turns out, Zack might want to consider the unsung glories of fatherhood.According to a study released last March in the Public Library of Science Medicine, children born to fathers who were 20 scored an average of 2 points higher on an IQ test than children born to 50-year-old fathers. And that's not all. Recent studies from Israel, California and Sweden have connected "late paternal age" with any number of serious medical conditions: The longer you wait, the more likely it is that your kid will be affected by schizophrenia, dwarfism, bipolar disorder, autism, Marfan syndrome, certain childhood cancers, or even, later in life, Alzheimer's. In some cases, the risk factors skyrocket. A 2005 study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles, found a fourfold rise in Down syndrome among babies born to men 50 and older. Worse still, those risk factors aren't limited to your tweed-sporting years: Statistically, "late paternal age" starts at 30, as in Zack's age. A 2006 study conducted by Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that fathers in their 30s have children with about 1.5 times the risk of developing autism compared with fathers in their teens and 20s. That factor jumps to five times for dads in their 40s. The cherry on the cake? The American Society for Reproductive
Juan
The 'andropause' idea is probably just a way for private doctors to make a quick buck out of prescribing testosterone to middle aged men. But yeah everything wears out as you get older, including sperm quality.
soundsandimages
Having children is best left up to young adults. Not 40 somethings. I always laugh when I hear about the corporate douchebag worrying about her biological clock ticking away. But my priorities differ, I chose a family instead of a cubicle or irrelevant business.
aGes_mD
NO.Men have been known to father into their 70's.Easily.Funny thing is, we really do not need more babies on planet earth.We're pushing 7 billion." Be fruitful and multiply"But, come on.Enough's enough.Mother earth is screaming bloody rape
dariodh
no, women have it thats why they want to grubb as much money from men before they become ugly and saggy and wrinkley.
lisa_oo0
Yes and no. Men are not born with a limited number of a few hundred thousand sperm that they must use up before the age of 45 like women do with their eggs. Men are constantly making new sperm and they have an endless supply of it too. The problem with men's fertility is that as they age, the quality of their sperm decreases, as every cell in your body ages, so do your sperm. A significant number of men have such a low sperm count as they age that they become nearly sterile or completely sterile. And it's not like 70 year old men can easily get women pregnant, their sperm is very slow and weak and the DNA is damaged. Even a 40 year old man has more damaged DNA in his sperm than a 30 year old man, and a 20 year old man has the highest quality sperm of all. By age 50 men have a high risk of fathering children with autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other disorders/conditions.There is also a problem with pollutants and chemicals in our enviornment that is causing record levels of infertility in otherwise healthy young people of childbearing age. Pollutants are causing a feminizing effect on men, and scientists are predicting that many baby boys born today will be sterile as adults. Many species of animals are also predicted to go extinct in the coming years due to the feminizing of the males, and the low birth rates of males.

Paternal age and mortality in nonaffective psychosis.

Schizophr Res. 2010 Feb 16. [Epub ahead of print]

Paternal age and mortality in nonaffective psychosis.
Miller B, Pihlajamaa J, Haukka J, Cannon M, Henriksson M, Heilä H, Huttunen M, Tanskanen A, Lönnqvist J, Suvisaari J, Kirkpatrick B.

Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

INTRODUCTION: Advanced paternal age (APA) is associated with an increased mortality in the general population, and is a risk factor for schizophrenia. We aimed to test if APA is associated with increased mortality in people with nonaffective psychosis. METHODS: Subjects with nonaffective psychosis who were born in Helsinki, Finland, between 1951 and 1960 (n=529) were followed until June 2006 (age 46 to 55). Hazard ratios were calculated, adjusting for subject age, age of the other parent, and gender. RESULTS: In females but not males, there was a significant increase in all-causes mortality (HR=7.04, 95% CI 1.60-31.04, p=0.01) and natural deaths (HR=7.64, 95% CI 1.20-48.66, p=0.03) in offspring of fathers age >/=40, after adjustment for potential confounders. In males but not females, there was a significant decrease in suicides (HR=0.89, 95% CI 0.81-0.97, p=0.01) with increasing maternal age (as a continuous variable). In the entire sample, there was also a trend for decreased all-cause mortality (HR=0.96, 95% CI 0.92-1.01, p=0.08) with increasing maternal age (as a continuous variable). DISCUSSION: Both paternal and maternal age may affect mortality risk in offspring with psychosis. The specific disorders and pathway(s) associated with the increase in natural cause mortality remain to be determined. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PMID: 20163936 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Tick tock goes the male biological clock

Tick tock goes the male biological clock
by Raquel on February 18, 2010 · 0 comments

in INFERTILITY


Tick tock tick tock. As soon we women reach the age of 30, we hear the biological ticking away as we try to hold on to our fertility just for another while. But what about men? Don’t they have a biological clock to listen to?

I mean, look at the following oldies celebrity dads who fathered kids beyond their 60th birthday:

David Letterman, at age 61
Donald Trump, 62
Sylvester Stallone, 62
Rod Stewart, 63
Michael Douglas, 64
Mick Jagger, 65
Hugh Hefner, 65
Paul McCartney, 66
Clint Eastwood 66.
Sir Michael John Gambon, 68
Woody Allen, 73
Charlie Chaplin, 73
Larry King, 75
Anthony Quinn, 81
Surely for men, age doesn’t matter for fertility.

However, there is increasing evidence that this is not the case, and that men too, should listen to the ticking clock starting at midlife. Researchers report that the sperm quality of men decreases with age, and that fertility starts to wane when they reach the 30s, and plummets when they reach their 40s. During the time, the overall chance of fathering a child drastically decreases. And if a pregnancy is ever achieved, the likelihood of miscarriage is increased. In addition, the resulting offspring would have a higher likelihood to suffer from genetically related disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, autism and low IQ. This is according to a study by researchers at the Eylau Centre for Assisted Reproduction in Paris, France who looked at more than 1,200 couples.

So what’s reason behind the male biological clock?

Researchers think it is due to some kind of “sperm decay” which is characterized by DNA damage and abnormalities. Men start producing sperms at puberty at a rate of 100 million new sperms per day. During the process, DNA is copied and duplication from one sperm to another. During the countless sperm-copying processes, mistakes occur and DNA mutations happen. These errors accumulate with age, leading to decreasing sperm quality.

According to fertility specialist Dr. Carl Herbert

“These subtle copying defects cause a long list of diseases in the children of older fathers. Lesch Nyhan syndrome, polycystic kidney disease and hemophilia A are among the most well known. For fathers over age 40, the risk of having a child with a disease-causing mutation is similar to the risk the mother has for a child with Down syndrome.”

Aside from age, other health factors, including body weight and diabetes, can also adversely affect sperm quality.

According to Dr. Harry Fisch, urologist at Columbia University, and author of the book The Male Biological Clock

“…couples are waiting longer to have children, and advances in reproductive technology are allowing older men and women to consider having children. The lack of appreciation among both medical professionals and the lay public for the reality of a male biological clock makes these trends worrisome.”

He further advises older dads to “have a thorough history and physical examination focused on their sexual and reproductive capacity. Such examination should entail disclosure of any sexual dysfunction and the use of medications, drugs, or lifestyle factors that might impair fertility or sexual response.”



Read more: http://battlingforhealth.com/2010/02/tick-tock-goes-the-male-biological-clock/#ixzz0fwQkd6fu