Associations between accelerated parental biologic age, autism spectrum disorder, social traits, and developmental and cognitive outcomes in their children.
Ashley Y Song, Kelly Bakulski, Jason I Feinberg and 9 others
PMID 36189953WHAT IT FOUND
In high-risk families, mothers biologically older than their chronological age had children with lower cognitive scores at 12 months.
Paternal biological aging showed no clear link to child autism risk or development. These associations were weak, inconsistent across measurement methods, and did not hold for all outcomes.
Key findings
01Maternal epigenetic age acceleration was associated with decreased child cognitive scores (MSEL-ELC) at 12 months, specifically when measured by the Hannum clock.
02There was no significant association between maternal or paternal epigenetic age acceleration and child autism diagnosis at 36 months.
03Associations varied depending on which epigenetic clock algorithm was used, suggesting results are sensitive to the measurement method.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study population consisted exclusively of siblings of children with autism, so findings may not apply to the general population. Sample size was relatively small, particularly for paternal analysis (80 fathers), limiting statistical power. Associations were inconsistent across the three different epigenetic clock algorithms used. The study did not adjust for multiple comparisons, increasing the chance that some significant findings are false positives. Participants were predominantly White, college-educated, and non-Hispanic, which limits generalizability.
Declared interests
The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use parental epigenetic age as a clinical predictor for autism or cognitive outcomes. The associations were weak, inconsistent across measurement tools, and failed to reach statistical significance for the primary outcome of autism diagnosis.