I opened up the paper today and one of the first articles that happened to catch my eye was entitled "Older Dads Pass More Mutations to Offspring." WHAT? You have to understand my concern here. My dad was forty-four years old when I was born and I was the firstborn in our family. Gee, thanks, Dad, for dilly-dallying around. It's also ironic that this bit of news came today, the same day that I have mailed off my Ancestry DNA sample to the lab to have my DNA analyzed across the entire familial chromosomal spectrum.
The article goes on to say that older women who give birth are at higher risk of giving birth to a child with a disorder such as Down Syndrome but older men, apparently, are the ones that can pass on genetic mutations contributing to things like autism, schizophrenia, and a whole host of other mutations. I'm hoping that if I was harboring some genetic time-bomb, it would have made its appearance by now, since I'm past the age of sixty. At least, that's what the little voices inside my head are telling me. I WILL, however, be on the lookout for any strange stuff that might pop up in the future, like a sudden desire to eat seafood or a strong compulsion to vote Democrat.
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