Summary Telomere length is linked to age-associated diseases, with shorter telomeres in blood associated with an increased probability of mortality from infection or heart disease. Little is known about how human telomere length is regulated despite convincing data from twins that telomere length is largely heritable, uniform in various tissues during development until birth and variable between individuals. As sperm cells show increasing telomere length with age, we investigated whether age of fathers at conception correlated with telomere length of their offspring. Telomere length in blood from 125 random subjects was shown to be positively associated with paternal age (+22?bp?yr?1, 95% confidence interval 5.2–38.3, P ?=?0.010), and paternal age was calculated to affect telomere length by up to 20% of average telomere length per generation. Males lose telomeric sequence faster than females (31?bp?yr?1, 17.6–43.8, P ??1, 3.5–24.8, P
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