IT’S not just women who should think about the consequences of starting a family late in life. Middle-aged men are more likely to father a child with Down’s syndrome than those in the flush of youth, according to the largest ever study of the effects of paternal age.
The germ cells that give rise to sperm are known to accumulate mutations as men age, but until now the consequences have been hard to pin down.
Researchers led by epidemiologist Jørn Olsen of the University of California, Los Angeles, used the Danish Fertility Database for information on 70,000 couples and their…
