The average age of childbearing is increasing due to education, employment and marriage problems over the last decade. And the progress of assisted reproductive techniques increased the chance of older parents to conceive children, however, offspring with older parents are more likely to suffer healthy problems (Sharma et al., 2015).
Advanced maternal age has long been recognized as a risk factor for children's health. The quality of the intra-uterine environment may decline and the risk of neural tube defects and aneuploid (particularly Down syndrome) increases with maternal age (Pariente et al., 2019). Therefore, women over 35 years have a higher risk of spontaneous abortion and perinatal complications(Mehari et al., 2020, Pinheiro et al., 2019).
Increasing paternal age has also been shown to be associated with adverse reproductive outcomes on their offspring. Fathers aged more than 45 increased the risk of spontaneous abortion, premature birth and low birth weight after meticulous adjustment for maternal age (Nybo Andersen & Urhoj, 2017, Khandwala et al., 2018). Urhoj et al showed a significant increased risk of stillbirth when offspring of fathers aged 40 years or more in an analysis covering nearly 1 million Denmark pregnancies(Urhoj et al., 2017). Advanced parental age to one’s birth has also been identified with higher risks of numerous disorders, such as malignant cancer(Lu et al., 2010, Johnson et al., 2009), neuropsychiatric diseases(Khachadourian et al., 2021, Janecka et al., 2017), cardiovascular diseases(Savage et al., 2014, Eriksen et al., 2013) and other diseases compared with younger fathers.
However, the effects of paternal age on offspring lifespan are still controversial. Arslan showed minuscule paternal age effects on offspring survival(Arslan et al., 2017). Carslake et al found that adult survival improved in the offspring of older parents. Individuals have children at older ages tend to provide their children a wealthier life, which may compensate for their physiological disadvantages (Carslake et al., 2019). Although older father’s children would be less likely to survive based on evolutionary genetic theory, the lifelong consequences of parental age for the offspring are harder to evaluate due to the interference of confounding factors, such as medical level and socioeconomic status.
In this study, it is first known to analyze the relationship between paternal age and offspring lifespan with a Chinese characteristic genealogy data. The “Ding” database recorded male offspring information between 1726–1855. All the family members lived in the same region and had a similar lifestyle, socioeconomic status, education level and blood relationship. Especially the impact of health service on life expectancy was less than that in modern society, because medical care was generally backward in ancient times. The results suggested that advanced paternal age at birth may be a health risk for offspring life expectance.