Tick tock – biological clock, sir?

Ever thought about your biological clock? Well, it turns out, women aren’t the only ones who have one.

With globally-adored actor George Clooney recently announcing his engagement to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, and Aussie hottie and eternal bachelor Jamie Durie being taken off the market (he’s currently dating Dateline presenter Anjali Rao) the question of the male biological clock has entered the conversation.

Dr Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor from the University of Washington, told Channel 7’s Sunrise program that Clooney, who is now 53, has reached a “pivotal age” in his life when, typically, “lust lovers” get a sense of their own mortality and start to think about reproduction, and whether they need to get on with it before they’re too late.

While it was long thought that men’s fertility lasted a lifetime – and examples like India’s 90-year-old farmer Nanu Ram Jogi, who fathered a child last year, do little to change that perception! – it is actually scientifically acknowledged that men do indeed face a decline in fertility as they age. The difference between men and women, however, is that the fertility level doesn’t disappear completely for men.

Scientific American has reported on studies that show older men are more likely to father children with mental illness.

Author of The Male Biological Clock: The Startling News About Aging, Sexuality, and Fertility in Men Harry Fisch explains that germ cells continually divide in order to keep sperm levels up. When a man reaches the age of 50, those cells will have divided, on average, 840 times.

“There’s more of a chance to have genetic abnormalities the more the cells divide,” Fisch says.

Studies have also shown that men above the age of 35 had sperm with more DNA damage than those younger, proving that age starts to affect a man’s fertility pretty early on.

Dr Schawrtz believes it’s highly likely that spunky George has been thinking about all of this lately, explaining that he could have been examining his window of opportunity for being a dad and decided that he’d better get on with it.

If George wants to be an active dad and watch his child grow up, it would certainly seem to make sense for him to get the baby-making under way sooner rather than later.

What’s your experience? Has the male biological clock ever ticked loudly in your ear? Did it move certain life choices along quicker? Let us know your stories in the comments below…