Research results that the baby's health risk increases as the father is older and under stress

by Jerry Lai

Research results have been announced that newborn babies born to fathers over the age of 45 have higher medical risks than newborn babies born to young fathers. In addition, there are also announced that the influence is recognized also in the newborn when the father feels strong stress enough to affect the body, and the age of the father and the stress reaction acquired in the future have a big influence on the child It turned out that it was.

Association of paternal age with perinatal outcomes between 2007 and 2016 in the United States: population based cohort study | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4372

Paternal Stress Exposure Alters Sperm MicroRNA Content and Reprograms Offspring HPA Stress Axis Regulation | Journal of Neuroscience
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/21/9003.long

Babies born to older fathers 'tend to have more medical issues' | Science | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/31/babies-born-to-older-fathers-tend-to-have-more-medical-issues

How Dad's Stresses Get Passed Along to Offspring - Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dads-stresses-get-passed-along-to-offspring/

Researchers at Stanford University study birth records and health records of more than 40 million newborn babies born between 2007 and 2016. As a result, the research team reported that the newborn born of a man aged 45 or older had a congenital disease or seizure is 18% higher than the newborn born of a father of 25 to 34 years old It is. In the case of girls, it was also found that the higher the age of the father, the higher the risk of gestational diabetes .

Michael Eisenberg, a senior author of the paper, stated in his family plan that the age of his father is a non-negligible factor. In addition, in the United States, I touched on the fact that the age of newborn father is getting higher year by year , alarming that an increase in health risk may affect society as a whole.

However, Eisenberg says the increased risk is not that large at the individual level. "When I explain to married couples about the health risks of children born, I always talk to lottery tickets.When I buy two lotteries, the possibility of winning may be doubled, but actually winning It is a difficult thing - even if the risk of anything rises by 10-20%, the risk when looking at the individual level does not change much, "Eisenberg says.

by Jacob Bøtter

As to why the aging of fathers increases the health risk of newborn babies, the research team speculates that DNA damage in sperms due to aging may be the key. According to Hilary Brown, a birth epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, it is said that it is difficult to elucidate the influence of the age of fathers and mothers on children even in years of research, DNA damage due to aging is only one possible We insist that it is only sex. In addition, "Research shows that fathers tend to take bad health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, obesity, chronic diseases, mental illnesses as their age goes up," the father's health risk increases He says all factors are related to newborn health problems.

Furthermore, in another study, Tracey Bale, a neurobiologist at the University of Maryland, announced at the Annual Meeting of the Neurological Society of San Diego, as a newborn infant with mental and physical stress also gains health risk. did. Mr. Bale conducted experiments with mice in order to study how extracellular vesicles released from fathers sperm have an influence on neonatal brain circuit formation. Then, it seems that there was a clear difference in the development of the brain circuit between individuals born from mice that were given stress such as exposure to white noise, and individuals born from mice that did not give stress.

In recent years, researches on exosomes and vesicles (extracellular vesicles) are advancing in various fields of research. Extracellular vesicles are those in which cells have entrapped substances secreted by minute capsules made of lipids and released outside the cells. Cells are said to convey information to other cells and tissues by this extracellular vesicle.

Mr. Jennifer Chang belonging to Mr. Bale's laboratory crosses a group of male mice and investigated the stress response of the child.

Mr. Chang made two sperm of a healthy male mouse, one was cultured together with an extracellular vesicle influenced by stress hormone and the other was cultured together with an extracellular vesicle unaffected by stress hormone Did. Then, the latter sperm-derived mice developed normally, whereas the former-derived sperm showed the same abnormal stress response as the father experienced. Mr. Baer argues that there is a possibility that extracellular vesicles may affect the sperm and inherit the acquired "experience" of the father to the child.

"Molecular signatures by extracellular vesicles can help researchers discover ways in which researchers can predict the health risk of children in a noninvasive manner," said Gerinde Mets, who is studying the genetic response of stress responses at the University of Lethbridge There is sex and it may be the basis of a pioneering stress test. "