BMJ  2004;329 (6 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7474.0-a

Paternal aging raises risk of schizophrenia

Children fathered by older men with no family history of schizophrenia are more likely than the children of younger men to develop schizophrenia. Analysing a cohort of 754 330 people born in Sweden between 1973 and 1980 and living in Sweden at age 16, Sipos and colleagues (p 1070) found that the overall hazard ratio for each 10 year increase in paternal age was 1.47 (95% confidence interval 1.23 to 1.76). They say that accumulation of sperm mutations might lead to this increased risk.

Credit: DAN WEAKS/PHOTONICA

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Paternal age and schizophrenia: a population based cohort study

Attila Sipos, Finn Rasmussen, Glynn Harrison, Per Tynelius, Glyn Lewis, David A Leon, and David Gunnell
BMJ 2004 329: 1070. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]