Age and Bipolar Association
We’ve always heard that mothers who have kids over the age of 40 may be at an increased risk of having a child with Down’s syndrome.
There is now a new study showing that older dad’s may have an increased risk of having a child with bipolar disorder. The new report appears in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
The study identified 13,428 patients in Swedish registers with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and randomly selected five controls who were the same sex and born in the same year but not diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Once the two groups had been compared, researchers found that the older an individual’s father, the more prone they were to have developed bipolar disorder.
The researchers made adjustments for the number of children, maternal age, socioeconomic status, and family history of psychotic disorders.
They determined that “the offspring of men 55 years and older were 1.37 times more likely to be diagnosed as having bipolar disorder than the offspring of men aged 20 to 24 years.”
They also mentioned that, for early-onset bipolar disorder, the “effect of the father's age was much stronger and there was no association with the mother's age.”
The reasoning suggested for the findings were that more mutations occur in the DNA within the sperm as compared to the eggs.
There is now a new study showing that older dad’s may have an increased risk of having a child with bipolar disorder. The new report appears in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
The study identified 13,428 patients in Swedish registers with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and randomly selected five controls who were the same sex and born in the same year but not diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Once the two groups had been compared, researchers found that the older an individual’s father, the more prone they were to have developed bipolar disorder.
The researchers made adjustments for the number of children, maternal age, socioeconomic status, and family history of psychotic disorders.
They determined that “the offspring of men 55 years and older were 1.37 times more likely to be diagnosed as having bipolar disorder than the offspring of men aged 20 to 24 years.”
They also mentioned that, for early-onset bipolar disorder, the “effect of the father's age was much stronger and there was no association with the mother's age.”
The reasoning suggested for the findings were that more mutations occur in the DNA within the sperm as compared to the eggs.
posted by Anonymous at 5:25 AM
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