Take care of your great-grandchildren!
The mortality of descendants turned out to be dependent on the age of fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers
The age at which a man becomes a father directly affects the health of his descendants: starting from the age of 20, every year of a parent's life that he lived before conceiving a child can increase the risk of death of the heir by 1 percent. Such conclusions were reached by Russian and British scientists, authors of an article in the journal PLoS One (Hayward et al., Fitness Consequences of Advanced Ancestral Age over Three Generations in Humans). The research is briefly reported in a press release received by the editorial office of <url>.
Biologists worked with records in Finnish church books in the period from 1688 to 1899. These historical sources provide valuable data for the study of man from a biological point of view: Scandinavia of the XVII-XIX centuries is distinguished simultaneously by poverty (lack of quality medical care and effective demographic policy) and a centuries-old tradition of carefully recording all acts of birth, marriage and death.
The analysis of pedigrees showed that Finns whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers produced descendants before the age of 30 were about 13 percent more likely to live to adulthood than the descendants of those men in three generations who became fathers after the age of 40.
The results obtained are consistent with the fact that with age, mutations accumulate in germ cells that are inherited and reduce the genetic fitness of descendants.
In addition, it turned out that women were less likely to marry if their male ancestors became fathers after 30. However, this fact may be due to socio-economic factors.
"In modern society, it is often customary to delay the birth of children until adulthood. In our work with British colleagues, for the first time with the involvement of a large amount of material, it is shown that for the viability of a descendant, it is important at what age his father gave birth to him, his father's grandfather, and grandfather's great–grandfather. Perhaps this effect has a genetic nature: fitness decreases due to the accumulation of mutations over several generations," explained the head of the study, Georgy Bazykin, an employee of the A.A. Harkevich Institute of Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The problem of accumulation of mutations in the sperm of men has long caused serious concerns of scientists and doctors. So, on June 25, 2015, a British bioethicist proposed freezing the sperm of all men upon reaching adulthood. To save offspring from dangerous diseases, people should be able to conceive children with the help of sperm collected at a young age, the scientist said.
Other doctors and scientists have harshly criticized Smith's idea. Spermatozoa do not tolerate freezing well and eventually lose the ability to fertilize eggs — and therefore middle-aged and elderly men will have to depend on the IVF procedure, noted andrologist Alan Pacey (Allan Pacey).
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29.06.2015