Bipolar Disorder In Offspring Linked To Dads Age: Study

While more and more couples have discovered that the 30s are the best time to have children, scientific evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Children born to fathers older than 30 are more likely to develop bipolar disorder, a mental illness formally known as maniac depressiondefine, a new research suggests.

The risk soaring with escalating paternal age, children born to fathers aged 30 to 34 are 11 percent more likely to be diagnosed with the condition in adulthood, compared to those born to fathers aged 20 to 24. The most pronounced effect is seen in men who prefer fathering at the age of 55 and older, with nearly 37 percent of the offspring’s likely to be detected with the condition, a team of Swedish and British researchers found.

Although various researches worldwide have already linked increasing paternal age with mental conditions like schizophrenia and autism, the study is the first to demonstrate links with bipolar disorder, the findings published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry bolster.

For the study, the researchers identified 13,428 Swedish patients from official health records with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder between 1932 and 1991.

For each patient, the researchers then randomly selected five controls – same sex and age but not diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Upon taking into account factors like mothers’ age, number of siblings, and family history of mental health problems, researchers found a clear between higher risk of bipolar disorder and escalating father's age.

"The older the age of an individual's father, more likely he or she was to have bipolar disorder," noted Dr. David Cohen, chief of reproductive endocrinology at the University of Chicago.

Explaining the possible cause of raised risk, Emma M. Frans, a scientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead researcher of the study said, "Unlike women who are born with all their eggs, men make new sperm throughout their adult life, thus resulting in genetic mutations that give rise to various disorders."

"As increasing paternal leads to more frequent DNA breakdowns in men’s sperm, causing the chromosomes to be deleted, rearranged or damaged."

Medically, bipolar disorder is not a single disorder, but a cluster of mood disorders characterized by the presence of both mania and depressiondefine. One or more episodes of abnormally elevated moods are often accompanied by periods of sadness and hopelessness.