New scientics lehti: Miesten sperman laatu heikkenee 40 v jälkeen

Ja uusien tutkimusten mukaan sperman geneettiset muutokset aiheuttavat riskin että lapsella on autismi tai syöpä:

Older fathers are passing on far more harmful genetic mutations than we thought. 

It significantly raises the risks of autism and cancer in offspring, new research shows.

New research shows that older men are far more likely to pass on disease-causing mutations to their children, due to a phenomenon known as selfish sperm. 

A large-scale study using cutting-edge genome sequencing revealed that while around 1 in 50 sperm from men in their early 30s carries a harmful mutation, that figure climbs to nearly 1 in 20 by age 70. These mutations arise not just from aging but from specific mutations that give sperm-producing stem cells a growth advantagecausing them to multiply faster and dominate sperm production over time.

These selfish mutations disproportionately affect critical genes involved in neurodevelopment and cancer risk, and their exponential increase means that the danger grows more steeply with age. Researchers identified over 40 genes that can cause this effect, including those linked to autism and severe developmental disorders. Interestingly, while unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking did increase mutation loads in blood, sperm cells seemed largely protected from these environmental factors. This groundbreaking study reshapes how we understand paternal age and genetic riskemphasizing that a fathers age is just as crucial as a mothers in determining the long-term health of future children.

Source: Le Page, M. (2025, October 8). Selfish sperm see older fathers pass on more disease-causing mutations. New Scientist.