Advanced paternal age associated with an elevated risk for schizophrenia in offspring in a Japanese population

Tsuchiya, Kenji J.; Takagai, Shu; Kawai, Masayoshi; Matsumoto, Hideo; Nakamura, Kazuhiko; Minabe, Yoshio; Mori, Norio; Takei, Nori

doi:10.1016/j.schres.2005.03.004

« Previous Next »Schizophrenia Research
Volume 76, Issue 2 , Pages 337-342, 15 July 2005

Advanced paternal age associated with an elevated risk for schizophrenia in offspring in a Japanese population

Kenji J. Tsuchiya
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Shu Takagai
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Masayoshi Kawai
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Hideo Matsumoto
- Department of Psychiatry, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan
Kazuhiko Nakamura
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Yoshio Minabe
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Norio Mori
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
Nori Takei
- Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan
- Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK
- Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, 1-20-1 Handayama, Hamamatsu 431-3192, Japan. Tel.: +81 53 435 2295; fax: +81 53 435 3621.

Received 14 December 2004; received in revised form 2 March 2005; accepted 4 March 2005.

Abstract

Objective

Advanced paternal age at birth as a risk for schizophrenia in the adult offspring has been reported in previous studies exclusively conducted in Western countries and Israel. The question has arisen whether this finding could be replicated in countries with socially and culturally different attitudes toward marriage, including factors such as age at marriage. To address this question, we conducted a case-control study of a Japanese population.

Methods

The subjects were representative inpatients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia. Unrelated healthy volunteers were recruited as control subjects. This study was conducted as one of a series of the projects by use of “The Mother and Child Health Handbooks (MCHHs),” from which information on parental characteristics around the time of birth, including parental ages at birth, had been extracted and recorded on computer.

Results

Ninety-nine subjects with schizophrenia and 381 healthy control subjects enrolled for the study. Advanced paternal, but not maternal, age was associated with an elevated risk for schizophrenia. Reproducibility of the association across different cultures is suggestive of a causal link.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, Paternal age, Risk factor, Case-control study, Japan