Recent study has proved that father’s age at the time of child birth is linked to develop blood and immune system cancers as an adult, particularly for single kids. The study, which appears in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found no association between having an older mother and these cancers.

The study stated that parents who delay having children until age 35 or older continues to increase, but the long-term health consequences for these  children has been increasing. The research on this factor was carried out by American Cancer Society. They examined a total of 138,003 participants, among them there were 2,532 cases of hematologic cancers identified between 1992 and 2009. The researchers found a strong, positive association with paternal age among participants without siblings.

In that group, those whose fathers were aged 35 years or older at the time of their birth were at 63 percent higher risk of hematologic malignancies compared to those whose fathers were younger than 25. This was compared to the group who had fathers that were under the age of 25 when they were born. There were no differences among the two groups when it came to the subtype of the blood cancer.

"The lifetime risk of these cancers is fairly low - about one in 20 men. Still, the study does highlight the need for more research to confirm these findings and to clarify the biologic underpinning for this association," said lead author Lauren Teras from American Cancer Society. This helps researchers to determine if there are specific genes or mutations that can be found as the father gets older, such as changes in sperm that might attribute to diseases like blood cancer in offspring. But more research needs to be carried out to prove that.

By Lizitha