By the time they reach their 20s, sons born to older fathers and those who were born to younger men score about the same on intelligence tests, a new Danish study finds.

Whatever negative biological effects a father's age might have on his child may be offset by the benefits of being raised by a better educated and financially stable older father, researchers said.

"Our results are reassuring for older fathers," Liselotte Petersen, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health in an email.

"Our finding is that any potentially deleterious effects of older fathers on general cognitive ability, as young adults may be counter-balanced," Petersen, an associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, said.

Previous studies have suggested that the children of older fathers are more likely to be diagnosed with autism and schizophrenia. That led Petersen and her colleagues to suspect that the children of older fathers may also have lower intelligence scores.

For the study, they used data collected from 169,009 men born after 1955. The goal was to see if there were any differences in intelligence related to how old their fathers were at the time of their birth.

The researchers used the participants' scores from the intelligence test that's required for military service in Denmark. Each participant took the test when he was about 20 years old.

The participants' average score was 42, which is about the same as that of the general Danish population.

Initially, it appeared that the children born to teenagers or to fathers over age 35 scored lower on the intelligence test, compared to the kids of fathers in their mid to late 20s.

But the difference disappeared when Petersen and her colleagues adjusted those scores to account for the parents' education levels, the children's birth order, the mother's age and the year the test was administered.

Children of teenage fathers, however, scored on average about one point lower, compared to the kids of fathers aged 25 to 29.

Small changes in intelligence may impact people in subtle ways, the researchers write in PLOS ONE. But that difference would be magnified if it were applied across the entire population.

The new study, however, can't prove that a father's age will directly impact his child's intelligence.

Also, it's hard to compare the intelligence scores used in this study to scores in previous research, according to NYU Langone Medical Center's Dr. Dolores Malaspina, because the intelligence test used is unique to Denmark.

But, Malaspina, who has done similar work but wasn't involved in the new study, wrote in an email that this is a "compelling area of research."

Researchers have tried to look into the age-old question as to why maximum heart rate (maxHR) decreases with age.

According to researchers at the University of Colorado, this decrease in maxHR not only limits the performance of aging athletes but it is also a leading cause for nursing home admittance for otherwise-healthy elderly individuals who no longer have the physical capacity required for independent living.

We say we're just getting old and slowing down, but exactly what is it that is slowing down?

Everybody knows that aerobic capacity decreases with age. You know that chart in your gym that shows your target heart rate decreasing as you get older?

Well, that's not a senior discount to let the elderly get off easy on their treadmill workouts. It's because older hearts simply can't beat as fast as younger hearts.

So the older person who's doing 120 beats per minute is probably working harder - at a higher percentage of maximum heart rate - than the younger person who is at 150 beats per minute.

A new study by a group led by Catherine Proenza, PhD and Roger Bannister, PhD from the University of Colorado School of Medicine reports that one of the reasons for the age-dependent reduction in maximum heart rate is that aging depresses the spontaneous electrical activity of the heart's natural pacemaker, the sinoatrial node.

Like most initial discoveries in basic science, this study opens many more questions and avenues for further research. But the significance of the study is that it raises the possibility that sinoatrial ion channels and the signaling molecules that regulate them could be novel targets for drugs to slow the loss of aerobic capacity with age.

Proenza notes that "although maximum heart rate goes down for everybody equally, regardless of physical conditioning, people can improve and maintain their aerobic capacity at all ages by exercising."

This study is set to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

A new study has revealed that pregnant women exposed to even low levels of air pollution are at a higher risk of delivering low birth weight babies.

The study, drawn from data on 74,000 pregnant women in 12 European countries gathered between 1994 and 2011, showed that air pollutants increases the risk of low birth weight and reduces average head circumference of babies born at term.

The study led by Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona found that for every increase of five micrograms per cubic metre in exposure to fine particulate matter during pregnancy, the risk of low birth weight in the baby rose by 18 percent.

Lead author Dr Marie Pedersen and his team estimated that if levels of fine particulates were reduced to 10 micrograms per cubic metre, 22 percent of cases of low birth weight among term deliveries could be prevented.

The study is published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Peanut butter has the potential to save lives of severely malnourished children every year, a new study has revealed.

While working in a Malawi village in 1999, Pediatrician Dr Mark Manary found that peanut butter, which is full of vitamins and nutrients, can be a solution to save millions, News.com.au reported.

Manary made a ready-made mixture, or ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), and found 95 per cent of children had recovered from malnutrition within six weeks of eating the peanut butter paste.

He told the publication that RUTF can treat severe malnutrition anywhere on the planet.

The research said that his team has treated more than 100,000 severely malnourished children with on average 90 per cent recovery.

His nutrient-rich mixture has even been endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the best way to treat malnutrition.

Manary said the peanut butter paste, which contains easy to digest mono-unsaturated fats and is rich in zinc and protein, also meant mothers could treat their children in the own home.

Project Peanut Butter is aiming to save two million children by 2015.

Scientists have found that a molecule produced in the brain during exercise can boost mental health due to its neuroprotective effects.


Researchers were also able to artificially increase the levels of the molecule, irisin, in the blood to activate genes involved in learning and memory.


The findings may be useful for designing drugs that utilise this exercise-induced molecule to guard against neurodegenerative diseases and improve cognition in the ageing population.


While it's known that exercise can boost cognitive function and lessen symptoms of neurological diseases like depression, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease, the mechanisms underlying these effects are unclear.


One important player is thought to be a growth factor named brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).


Through experiments conducted in mice, investigators led by Dr Bruce Spiegelman of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School found that a molecule called FNDC5 and its cleavage product, irisin, are elevated by endurance exercise in the brain and increase BDNF expression.


On the other hand, mice genetically altered to have low irisin levels in the brain had reduced levels of BDNF.


The team also found that raising levels of irisin in the circulation caused the molecule to cross the blood brain barrier, where it increased expression of BDNF and activated genes involved in cognition.


"Our results indicate that FNDC5/irisin has the ability control a very important neuroprotective pathway in the brain," said Spiegelman.


The researchers now plan to work on developing a stable form of the irisin protein that can be given to mice by injection and may augment the brain's natural anti-degeneration pathways.


The study was published in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism.