5 ms·

I had heard this before but only with schizophrenia which always had me a tad worried. But I never heard: > "The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is i

I had heard this before but only with schizophrenia which always had me a tad worried. But I never heard: > "The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range of 2 percent, at most" Which is much more comforting to know. I never heard any risk percentage from earlier articles I've read. My father was 48 when I was born.

michaelcampbell 14y ago
Mine was 44 and having lost my (adopted; non-biological) mother to Alzheimers, I've seen firsthand how that goes down. Needless to say, I'm pretty freaked out about that possibility.
lizzard 14y ago
That's about the same risk for a 43 year old woman to have a baby with Downs. So where are all the "biological clock is ticking" articles for men?
- mahyarm 14y ago
  Biological clock is more about absolute fertility vs. healthy fertility.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    That's certainly how I hear it, too. I've never heard a woman expressing fear that she might have waited too long, such that her child will get Downs. Rather, fear that she might have simply waited too long, and now it is too late.
    - bestes 14y ago
      Once you get pregnant, though, you are labeled with the condition AMA - Advanced Maternal Age. This comes with more tests and precautions.
    - Uhhrrr 14y ago
      I'm over 40, and I certainly have! Downs can be detected in time for an abortion, but it means that you have to get pregnant all over again, and risk Downs and the various other bad mutations again, and risk miscarriage for whatever reasons all over again, etc. So for non-fundamentalist women, there is fear of having a Downs child, but it gets rolled into the package of "worried about getting to have a successful pregnancy at all".
      - nsxwolf 14y ago
        So, any woman who wouldn't abort a Downs baby is a fundamentalist now?
        Uhhrrr 14y ago
        Fair enough - they might have other reasons.
- continuations 14y ago
  > So where are all the "biological clock is ticking" articles for men? A part of that is because the risk is a lot higher for women than men. http://www.notsuperhuman.com/2010/02/pregnancy-chronicles-with-older-moms-baby%E2%80%99s-autism-risk-rises/ http://www.notsuperhuman.com/2010/02/pregnancy-chronicles-wi... "University of California-Davis researchers studied close to 5 million births during the ’90s, a decade when autism spiked in the state. "A woman’s risk for having an autistic child rose 18% for every five years she aged. "40-year-old women had... a 77% greater risk (of autistic child) than women who gave birth before 25." Being a new mom at 40 increases autism risk by 77%, vs. the 2% increase in autism risk from being a new dad at 40 or older.
  - roguecoder 14y ago
    Your numbers are bad. I am guessing, since the article you link doesn't actually link to the scientific study, that it is referring to: http://pediatricbioscience.com/publications/pdf/Pub16.pdf http://pediatricbioscience.com/publications/pdf/Pub16.pdf This did not examine any form of causality, as the currently-linked study did, nor did it evaluate the children themselves. By not controlling for evaluation mechanisms, the study you link only addresses patterns of early diagnosis and treatment. While it is interesting, the researchers themselves say that the data is hardly conclusive. The current study, on the other hand, explores not just correlation but causation, and thus is far more persuasive. Second, you are comparing increase in risk to total overall risk. The percentage increase for men going from age 25 to 40 is 110%, not 2%. The study you link found a comparable number for women over age 40 of 0.4%.
arscan 14y ago
The article doesn't directly mention the risk to a man in his 20's or 30's... just that up to 30% of the cases of autism has to do with the mutations associated with "older" sperm. Obviously there is a lot more work that needs to be done to understand this, but it would be nice if they presented this information in a more actionable form.
Alex3917 14y ago
In other words, these results are statistically significant, but not clinically significant. There are entire industries that depend on you not knowing the difference between these two concepts, which makes it all the more important that you actually learn it.
- evidenceofllama 14y ago
  Do you mean that 2% is not a clinically significant figure? Could you explain why? (I'm not familiar with clinical significance)
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    Yes. For something to be statistically significant means there is some difference between the two groups that is most likely not attributable to random chance. For something to be clinically significant means the difference between the two groups is large enough to have noticeable health effects or impact one's decision-making about medical issues. In the book The Emperor's New Drugs, about the efficacy of anti-depressants (or lack thereof), Kirsch gives the example that if you had a group of 500,000 people and found that smiling frequently increases life expectancy by 10 seconds on average, this may well be statistically significant because the study population is so large. However, it's not clinically significant because no one really cares if they live an extra 10 seconds, certainly not enough to change some major aspect of their behavior at least. In this case, if the chances of having kids with autism or schizophrenia increase by/to? at most 2%, as the article states, then in practice this shouldn't really deter anyone from having kids. Thus, while the findings are statistically significant, they are not clinically significant.
    - evidenceofllama 14y ago
      So is clinical significance determined in part by perceived significance? I feel that a potential 2% risk of conditions as serious as those mentioned in the article could easily influence some people towards choosing to have kids at a younger age.

michaelcampbell 14y ago

Mine was 44 and having lost my (adopted; non-biological) mother to Alzheimers, I've seen firsthand how that goes down. Needless to say, I'm pretty freaked out about that possibility.

lizzard 14y ago

That's about the same risk for a 43 year old woman to have a baby with Downs. So where are all the "biological clock is ticking" articles for men?

mahyarm 14y ago
Biological clock is more about absolute fertility vs. healthy fertility.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  That's certainly how I hear it, too. I've never heard a woman expressing fear that she might have waited too long, such that her child will get Downs. Rather, fear that she might have simply waited too long, and now it is too late.
  - bestes 14y ago
    Once you get pregnant, though, you are labeled with the condition AMA - Advanced Maternal Age. This comes with more tests and precautions.
  - Uhhrrr 14y ago
    I'm over 40, and I certainly have! Downs can be detected in time for an abortion, but it means that you have to get pregnant all over again, and risk Downs and the various other bad mutations again, and risk miscarriage for whatever reasons all over again, etc. So for non-fundamentalist women, there is fear of having a Downs child, but it gets rolled into the package of "worried about getting to have a successful pregnancy at all".
    - nsxwolf 14y ago
      So, any woman who wouldn't abort a Downs baby is a fundamentalist now?
      - Uhhrrr 14y ago
        Fair enough - they might have other reasons.
continuations 14y ago
> So where are all the "biological clock is ticking" articles for men? A part of that is because the risk is a lot higher for women than men. http://www.notsuperhuman.com/2010/02/pregnancy-chronicles-with-older-moms-baby%E2%80%99s-autism-risk-rises/ http://www.notsuperhuman.com/2010/02/pregnancy-chronicles-wi... "University of California-Davis researchers studied close to 5 million births during the ’90s, a decade when autism spiked in the state. "A woman’s risk for having an autistic child rose 18% for every five years she aged. "40-year-old women had... a 77% greater risk (of autistic child) than women who gave birth before 25." Being a new mom at 40 increases autism risk by 77%, vs. the 2% increase in autism risk from being a new dad at 40 or older.
- roguecoder 14y ago
  Your numbers are bad. I am guessing, since the article you link doesn't actually link to the scientific study, that it is referring to: http://pediatricbioscience.com/publications/pdf/Pub16.pdf http://pediatricbioscience.com/publications/pdf/Pub16.pdf This did not examine any form of causality, as the currently-linked study did, nor did it evaluate the children themselves. By not controlling for evaluation mechanisms, the study you link only addresses patterns of early diagnosis and treatment. While it is interesting, the researchers themselves say that the data is hardly conclusive. The current study, on the other hand, explores not just correlation but causation, and thus is far more persuasive. Second, you are comparing increase in risk to total overall risk. The percentage increase for men going from age 25 to 40 is 110%, not 2%. The study you link found a comparable number for women over age 40 of 0.4%.

arscan 14y ago

The article doesn't directly mention the risk to a man in his 20's or 30's... just that up to 30% of the cases of autism has to do with the mutations associated with "older" sperm. Obviously there is a lot more work that needs to be done to understand this, but it would be nice if they presented this information in a more actionable form.

Alex3917 14y ago

In other words, these results are statistically significant, but not clinically significant. There are entire industries that depend on you not knowing the difference between these two concepts, which makes it all the more important that you actually learn it.

evidenceofllama 14y ago
Do you mean that 2% is not a clinically significant figure? Could you explain why? (I'm not familiar with clinical significance)
- Alex3917 14y ago
  Yes. For something to be statistically significant means there is some difference between the two groups that is most likely not attributable to random chance. For something to be clinically significant means the difference between the two groups is large enough to have noticeable health effects or impact one's decision-making about medical issues. In the book The Emperor's New Drugs, about the efficacy of anti-depressants (or lack thereof), Kirsch gives the example that if you had a group of 500,000 people and found that smiling frequently increases life expectancy by 10 seconds on average, this may well be statistically significant because the study population is so large. However, it's not clinically significant because no one really cares if they live an extra 10 seconds, certainly not enough to change some major aspect of their behavior at least. In this case, if the chances of having kids with autism or schizophrenia increase by/to? at most 2%, as the article states, then in practice this shouldn't really deter anyone from having kids. Thus, while the findings are statistically significant, they are not clinically significant.
  - evidenceofllama 14y ago
    So is clinical significance determined in part by perceived significance? I feel that a potential 2% risk of conditions as serious as those mentioned in the article could easily influence some people towards choosing to have kids at a younger age.