Age difference increased risk for autism – Vasterbotten Courier

Children of older fathers are at increased risk for autism, previous studies have shown.

But even large age differences between parents may mean an increased risk .

In a recent international study, researchers found that parents’ age and couples age differences affect the risk of autism. The researchers also calculated what was the most important component.

“It was found that the overall age of the couples were most important, but that the difference in age also contribute and become more dominant with increasing age difference between the parents,” says Sven Sandin, researchers at Karolinska Institutet (KI), in a press release.

“The risk was greatest where one parent was in the middle age and the partner about 10 years younger or more,” he continues.

The biggest risk were in couples where the father was between 35 and 44 years old and the mother of at least 10 years younger or in couples where the mother was in the 35-40 years old and the father at least ten years younger.

Apart KI is also including Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, US, who conducted the study. The researchers analyzed more than 5.7 million children born between 1985 and 2004. They also followed up on the children diagnosed with autism until 2009. More than 30 900 children had received such a diagnosis.

The study is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.