Stata do file code for simulation analyses from Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants.

Telomere length (TL) declines with age in most human tissues, and shorter TL appears to accelerate senescence. By contrast, men's sperm TL is positively correlated with age. Correspondingly, in humans, older paternal age at conception (PAC) predicts longer offspring TL. We have hypothesized that this PAC effect could persist across multiple generations, and thereby contribute to a transgenerational genetic plasticity that increases expenditures on somatic maintenance as the average age at reproduction is delayed within a lineage. Here, we examine TL data from 3282 humans together with PAC data across four generations. In this sample, the PAC effect is detectable in children and grandchildren. The PAC effect is transmitted through the matriline and patriline with similar strength and is characterized by a generational decay. PACs of more distant male ancestors were not significant predictors, although statistical power was limited in these analyses. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the PAC effect is linear, not moderated by offspring age, or maternal age, and is robust to controls for income, urbanicity and ancestry. These findings show that TL reflects the age at the reproduction of recent male matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, with an effect that decays across generations.

端粒长度（TL）在大多数人类组织中随着年龄的增长而缩短，而较短的端粒长度似乎会加速衰老过程。相反，男性的精子端粒长度与年龄呈正相关。相应地，在人类中，较高的父亲生育年龄（PAC）预示着后代端粒长度的延长。我们假设这种PAC效应可能跨越多代持续存在，从而促进跨代遗传可塑性，这种可塑性随着谱系内平均生育年龄的推迟而增加对躯体维持的支出。在本研究中，我们考察了3282名人类的端粒长度数据以及四代间的PAC数据。在此样本中，PAC效应在子女和孙子女中均可检测到。PAC效应通过直系血亲和旁系血亲以相似强度传递，并表现出代际衰减的特征。尽管在这些分析中统计效力有限，但较远男性祖先的PAC并非显著的预测因素。敏感性分析表明，PAC效应呈线性，不受子女年龄或母亲年龄的调节，并且对收入、城市化和血统的控制具有稳健性。这些发现表明，端粒长度反映了最近男性直系血亲和旁系血亲的生育年龄，其影响随代际衰减。