BMJ  2005;330:147-148 (15 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7483.147-b

Letter

Paternal age and schizophrenia

One swallow does not make a summer

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Sipos et al set themselves the task of showing the presence of a higher than average paternal age in schizophrenia and that this phenomenon is restricted only to cases with a low family history for the disease.1 Both hypotheses are confirmed with statistical significance in their study.

This is interesting, but the sample studied is biased, which casts serious doubts on the validity of the results. The study includes only subjects with an age at onset between 16 and 38. The literature on schizophrenia shows that to generalise the results obtained from a limited age sample is dangerous. Often differences that seem highly significant in age biased samples even up when the cohorts are followed up throughout their lifetime. The aetiological factors in schizophrenia are probably the same at all ages qualitatively but seem to vary greatly quantitatively.2

The male to female ratio in the incidence and prevalence . . . [Full text of this article]

Marco Procopio, consultant psychiatrist

Priory Hospital Hove, Hove, East Sussex BN3 4FH marcoprocopio00@hotmail.com


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Relevant Article

Paternal age and schizophrenia: a population based cohort study
Attila Sipos, Finn Rasmussen, Glynn Harrison, Per Tynelius, Glyn Lewis, David A Leon, and David Gunnell
BMJ 2004 329: 1070. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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