Obese Men Risk Fathering Autistic Kids

Obese men are more likely to father an autistic child than men of a healthy weight, according to a recent study. The same research shows that the weight of the mother, on the other hand, has little-to-no influence over the child's chances of developing autism.

According to the study, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Pediatrics, researchers assessed nearly 93,000 Norwegian children and their parents searching for common denominators associated with the development of autism. The ages ranged from four to 13 years old throughout the study.

Through a long-term observational program called the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study, the participants were followed by researchers for an average of seven years. Over this time, 419 of the children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 25 of which were born to obese fathers.

Drawing data from constructed models, the researcher were able to estimate the relative risks of each child's risk of autism. What stuck the researchers as mot noticeable was that children of obese parents showed higher autism risk numbers.

According to the study, "maternal obesity was only weakly associated with ASD risk;" paternal obesity, however, was  associated with a 0.27 percent risk of developing obesity. Whale  a seemingly low chance in itself, this risk is much higher than the 0.14 percent risk of autism in the children of men of a healthy weight.

Individual risk of Asperger disorder, now classified as a type of autism, was also assessed but in a smaller data pool, as only children past the age of seven can be diagnosed with the disorder. In this comparison, researchers saw an even more alarming trend, finding a 0.38 percent risk of Aspergers among the children of obese fathers and a mere 0.18 percent risk among the children of thinner men.

With this data, the researchers were able to conclude that there is most certainly an association between obesity of fathers and the development of ASD in their children, but the authors of the study are hesitant to call this association a direct link.

The researchers are now suggesting that more research is needed to be conducted on a wider and more comprehensive scale to truly determine why the obesity of fathers appears to heighten the chances of their children having autism.

The study was published in Pediatrics on April 7.