Danish research published in the European Journal of Epidemiology reported in April 2008 that deaths of children from fathers age 45-49 occurred at 1.77 times the rate of those fathered by men aged between 25 and 30. Deaths of children from fathers aged 50 or more occurred at 1.59 times the rate of those fathered by men aged between 25 and 30.

The deaths of many of the children of the older fathers were related to congenital defects such as problems of the heart and spine, which increase the risk of infant mortality. But there were also higher rates of accidental death (injuries or poisoning), which researchers speculate might be explained by the increased likelihood of suffering from autism, epilepsy or schizophrenia.

In the study among 100,000 children born between 1980 and 1996 , 831 died before age 18, the majority when they were less than one year old.

SOURCE:
Zhu JL, Vestergaard M, Madsen KM, Olsen J. Paternal age and mortality in children. Eur J Epidemiol. 2008 Apr 25

A study from Stanford University and the University of California Santa Barbara shows that relationships of older men partnered with younger women (so-called May-December relationships) tend to produce children that are likely to live longer.

The study helps explain away previous research that predicts a “Wall of Death” — that female menopause at about age 50 years should be followed by a sharp increase in mortality.  Human lives do not experience that wall of death. This new study focuses on the biology of both sexes, not just the biology of women and menopause.

Women who can no longer reproduce cannot produce a child with longevity genes.  Men partnered with menopausal women also cannot produce a child with longevity genes, since the woman cannot bear a child. However, an older man is likely to have longevity genes that may be passed on to future generations, and partnering with a younger woman makes this possible.

Male fertility can only result from matings with fertile females, and the study present a range of data showing that males much older than 50 yrs have substantial realized fertility through matings with younger females.

Tuljapurkar SD, Puleston CO, Gurven MD (2007) Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan. PLoS ONE 2(8): e785. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000785

Funding for this study is supported by U.S. National Institute on Aging grant 1 PO1 AG22500-01 and NIA grant R01 AG024119-01.

Researchers at Shell Oil Company studied thousands of all past employees who retired at age 55 and 60 and were still alive at 65 and compared with those those who retired at 65.

Early retirement at 55 or 60 is not associated with increased survival. Researchers discovered that employees who retired at 55 had a significantly increased mortality compared with those who retired at 65. The difference was not attributed to the effects of sex, socioeconomic status or calendar year of entry to the study, although poorer health status of some early retirees may play some part.

Survival for employees who retired at 60 was similar to that of employees who retired at 65. Retiring at 65 was not associated with a greater risk of mortality than retiring at 55 or 60 in a cohort of Shell Oil employees.

Differences in mortality from the effects of employee’s sex, year of entry to the study, or socioeconomic status were not statistically significant.

SOURCE:
Tsai SP, Wendt JK, Donnelly RP, de Jong G, Ahmed FS. Age at retirement and long term survival of an industrial population: prospective cohort study.  BMJ. 2005 Oct 29;331(7523):995.