AUTISM OLDER FATHERS AND AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS

Is Autism an "Auto Immune Disorder"? Are autoimmune disorders due to gene mutations due to increasing paternal age?

DIABETES TYPE 1 ASSOCIATED WITH HIGHER PATERNAL AGE

Diabetes Type 1 and Paternal Age
1: Eur J Pediatr. 1999 May;158(5):362-6. Links
Risk factors for type I diabetes mellitus in children in Austria.Rami B, Schneider U, Imhof A, Waldhor T, Schober E.
University Children's Hospital Vienna, Austria.

The aim of this study was to investigate environmental risk factors in the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus in a population-based case-control study. Parents of all patients with manifestation of type 1 diabetes between 1989 and 1994 in Vienna were asked to complete a questionnaire (n = 114). Control children (n = 495), matched for age and sex, were randomly recruited from all schools in Vienna. Fathers of diabetic children were significantly older at the time their children were born than fathers of control children (P = 0.015). Children with diabetes were more likely to be second- or third-born children (P<0.05) and fewer went to kindergarten than the control group children (P = 0.007). No significant difference in duration of gestation, percentage of delivery by caesarean section, birth weight or length was found. Neonatal jaundice was more often observed in the patient group (P = 0.038). Breast feeding was reported by 82.7% of mothers of diabetic children and by 81% of mothers of control children, and the duration of breast feeding was longer in patients than in controls (n.s.). CONCLUSION: In our study, the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus was associated with higher paternal age and neonatal jaundice. No correlation could be found with dietary intake of cow's milk products in early infancy, vaccination and other environmental factors.


MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND ADVANCING PATERNAL AGE


Epidemiology. 2004 Nov;15(6):717-23. Links
Parental age, family size, and risk of multiple sclerosis.Montgomery SM, Lambe M, Olsson T, Ekbom A.
Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 76Stockholm, Sweden. Scott.Montgomery@medks.ki.se

BACKGROUND: Family structure, such as having siblings, provides proxy measures for a variety of characteristics relevant to disease risk. The etiology of multiple sclerosis (MS) is not well defined and analysis of family structure may provide etiologic clues. We conducted a case-control study to examine possible associations. METHODS: Using the Swedish Inpatient Register, we identified 4443 patients with a diagnosis of MS. From the general Swedish population, using birth and death registers, we selected 24,194 controls with similar characteristics for year, county of birth, and survival until at least age at diagnosis of the matched cases. The Multi-Generation Register linked data on siblings and parents. The Census provided father's social class based on occupation. RESULTS: Having 3 or more younger siblings, compared with none, produced an adjusted odds ratio (OR) for MS (with 95% confidence interval) of 0.80 (0.70-0.92) (adjusting for number of siblings, twins, maternal and paternal age, parental MS, sex, father's social class, county and year of birth). With 3 or more older siblings, the adjusted OR was 0.83 (0.72-0.96). Different-sex twin pairs compared with singletons had an OR of 0.59 (0.37-0.95) for MS. The risk of MS increased steadily with father's age but not mother's age, up to 2.00 (1.35-2.96) for 51- to 55-year-old fathers (compared with 21- to 25-year-old fathers). CONCLUSIONS: Parents who have offspring with MS may have subtly impaired fertility. The unexpected association with paternal age may be the result of an increased risk of accumulating germ cell mutations among older men.