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Older Grandfathers Pass On Autism Risk Through Generations
Older Grandfathers Pass On Autism Risk Through Generations
Older Grandfathers Pass On Autism Risk Through Generations
Men who have children at older ages are more likely to have grandchildren with autism compared to younger grandfathers, according to new research. This is the first time that research has shown that risk factors for autism may accumulate over generations.
The study led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Queensland Brain Institute in Australia is published today in JAMA Psychiatry.
By using Swedish national registers, researchers identified 5,936 individuals with autism and 30,923 healthy controls born in Sweden since 1932. They had complete data on each individual's maternal and paternal grandfathers' age of reproduction and details of any psychiatric diagnosis.
The study found that the risk of autism in the grandchild increased the older the age of the grandfather at the time his son or daughter was born. Men who had a daughter when they were 50 or older were 1.79 times more likely to have a grandchild with autism. Men who had a son when they were 50 or older were 1.67 times more likely to have a grandchild with autism, compared to men who had children when they were 20-24.
Dr Avi Reichenberg, from King's Institute of Psychiatry and co-author of the paper says: "We tend to think in terms of the here and now when we talk about the effect of the environment on our genome. For the first time in psychiatry, we show that your father's and grandfather's lifestyle choices can affect you. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't have children if your father was old when he had you, because whilst the risk is increased, it is still small. However, the findings are important in understanding the complex way in which autism develops."
Emma Frans, lead author of the study from Karolinska Institutet says: "We know from previous studies that older paternal age is a risk factor for autism. This study goes beyond that and suggests that older grandpaternal age is also a risk factor for autism, suggesting that risk factors for autism can build up through generations."
In the UK, approximately 1 in 100 adults have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with the condition affecting more men than women. The condition affects people in very different ways: some are able to live relatively everyday lives, while others will require a lifetime of specialist support. People with ASD have difficulty communicating with and relating to other people, and making sense of the world around them.
Autism is known to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Previous studies have shown that older paternal age is a risk factor for autism in children: fathers aged 50 or older have a more than doubled risk to have a child diagnosed with autism compared to younger fathers.
The mechanism behind this link is unknown, but may be explained by mutations occurring in the male sperm cells. Sperm cells divide over time, and on each division the genome is faced by the possibility of new mutations being introduced.
However, most genetic mutations do not result in the child developing autism. The new findings suggest that these 'silent' mutations are passed on to the otherwise healthy child, but may influence the risk of future generations developing autism. The authors suggest that genetic risk could accumulate over generations, or could interact with other risk factors, until it reaches a threshold resulting in the disorder manifesting itself.
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Women Abused as Children More Likely to Have Children With Autism
Women Abused as Children More Likely to Have Children With Autism
Women who experienced physical, emotional, or sexual abuse as children are more likely to have a child with autism than women who were not abused, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Those who experienced the most serious abuse had the highest likelihood of having a child with autism -- three-and-a-half times more than women who were not abused.
"Our study identifies a completely new risk factor for autism," said lead author Andrea Roberts, research associate in the HSPH Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "Further research to understand how a woman's experience of abuse is associated with autism in her children may help us better understand the causes of autism and identify preventable risk factors."
The study appears online March 20, 2013 and in the May 2013 print issue of JAMA Psychiatry. It is the first to explore the relationship between a mother's exposure to childhood abuse and risk of autism in her children.
The authors examined data from more than 50,000 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II. They found that it was not just women exposed to the most serious levels of abuse who had higher risk of having a child with autism, but also a large number of women who experienced moderate abuse. While about 2% of women reported the most serious abuse, even women in the top 25% of abuse severity -- which included mostly women who experienced more moderate levels of abuse -- were 60% more likely to have a child with autism compared with women who did not experience abuse. These results suggest that childhood abuse is not only very harmful for the person who directly experiences it, but may also increase risk for serious disabilities in the next generation, the authors said.
Delving further, the researchers looked at nine pregnancy-related risk factors to see if they were linked to higher risk of having a child with autism in women who were abused as children. These nine risk factors -- including gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and smoking -- have been previously associated with an increased likelihood of having a child with autism.
The researchers did find that women who had experienced abuse as children had a higher risk for each of the pregnancy-related risk factors that were examined. Surprisingly, though, those risk factors accounted for only 7% of the increased likelihood of having a child with autism among women who were abused.
Given that these factors accounted for so little of the association between mother's experience of abuse and risk of autism in her children, the authors speculated that other factors may be playing a role. One possibility, they said, is that long-lasting effects of abuse on women's biological systems, such as the immune system and stress-response system, are responsible for increasing their likelihood of having a child with autism. More research is needed to tease out the mechanisms involved in the maternal childhood abuse-autism link, the authors said.
"Childhood abuse is associated with a wide array of health problems in the person who experiences it, including both mental health outcomes like depression and anxiety, and physical health outcomes like obesity and lung disease. Our research suggests that the effects of childhood abuse may also reach across generations," said senior author Marc Weisskopf, associate professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at HSPH.
Given the findings in this study, the authors suggest increasing efforts to prevent childhood abuse, and suggest that clinicians focus more strongly on limiting pregnancy-related autism risk factors, particularly among women who experienced abuse in childhood.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130320212818.htm