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Get a clue about your health —
your family's medical history
Your red hair and blue eyes, dark skin, short height, crooked toe, and other traits are the results of your genes. So are many health issues. Researchers have evidence that there's a genetic link to many common diseases. So researching your family medical history could help pinpoint your future health risks.
Common conditions passed on through the generations include heart disease, some forms of cancer, obesity, alcoholism, types I and 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, glaucoma, hemophilia, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cystic fibrosis.
Also, certain ethnic groups pass on specific diseases: eastern European Jews have an increased tendency toward breast cancer and Tay-Sachs disease. Sickle cell anemia is found primarily in those with African heritage. Kidney disease occurs more often in babies with Scandinavian heritage. People born of Mediterranean descent might inherit thalassemia, and cystic fibrosis is more often found in persons of central European descent.
An opportunity for prevention
How to approach your relatives
What to include
What if there's no one to interview
A note for adoptees
Give the gift of a family medical history
An opportunity for prevention
It's possible that, one day, medications might be developed to target the genes responsible for chronic illness. But the best ways to prevent them are to pay attention to your risk factors, your tobacco use, your diet and exercise, and your battle with the bulge. And, to prepare your family medical history.
| Some genetic patterns you might uncover could involve left-handedness, simple skin problems, or blue eyes (and these are all good to record), but they also can involve alcoholism — important for a young person, for instance, who's just starting to make lifestyle choices that could be affected by this information, since many addictions begin in high school and college years. |
Even the U.S. Surgeon General says you should focus on your family medical history — for your sake and your children's sake. It can be a powerful screening tool for your doctor and gives you an opportunity to take preventive action. So, for example, if your three uncles had heart disease, or your mother and aunts had breast cancer, or if depression runs in your family, you should be screened earlier than the recommended age for the general public.
How to approach your relatives
- Talk to your immediate family members then branch out to grandparents on both sides of the family.
- Call, write, e-mail or conduct in-person interviews. Many people are more comfortable with in-person interviews, but they are not always possible.
- Phrase your questions with sensitivity and tact. People can get protective when talking about their own personal health.
- Listen carefully and with compassion. Don't interrupt or make judgmental comments.
- When finished with the project, make copies of the family medical history for others in the family.
Don't guess. If your relatives only know symptoms rather than a diagnosis, indicate that. If you have conflicting information, verify your facts as much as possible and indicate that there are different recollections about it.
What to include
For as many generations back as you can, collect details for a medical biography of each family member that includes any medical conditions they had. Include birth dates, cause of death, age at death, age at diagnosis for each condition, treatments, surgeries, and accidents. Make notes on whether they were heavy drinkers, smoked, were overweight, and had a sedentary or active lifestyle. It might be helpful to know their occupation, socio-economic status, ethnic roots, religion, and more. These conditions are known to be passed through families:
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Cancer (including primary site)
- Diabetes — indicate age of onset and if type 1 or 2
- Pneumonia or flu
- Lung disease — such as asthma, emphysema, tuberculosis
- Kidney disease, including polycystic kidney disease (PKD)
- Chronic liver disease, including cirrhosis
- Alcoholism
- Osteoporosis
- Eye diseases, including glaucoma and cataracts
- Vision or hearing loss
- Alzheimer's or dementia
- Parkinson's disease
- Huntington's disease
- Cystic fibrosis
- Sickle cell anemia
- Schizophrenia or other mental illness
- Depression
- Birth defects
- Learning disabilities
- Allergies
- Migraine headaches
What if there's no one to interview?
If your parents and grandparents are deceased, ask other family members what they remember. Do the best research you can. You can glean clues or specific information from death certificates, obituaries, life insurance records, cemetery and funeral records, family letters and bibles, diaries, census records, adoption records, immigration documents, passports, photos, and old medical records.
A note for adoptees
Adoption puts you at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to knowing your family health history. Health questions are one of the most common reasons for adoption reunions, which are occurring more and more often. Besides learning about health history in a reunion with birthparents, some adoptees are able to find out additional health information through their adoption agency — if their birthparents updated their agency files, and if the agency is in a state that allows adoptees access to their non-identifying information. Resources for more information include:
Give the gift of a family medical history
Get together with your relatives and begin your family medical history. The time you put into constructing this history could be one of the most important and maybe even life-saving gifts you ever give.
Free downloadable form
The U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative is a campaign to encourage families to start recording health issues that run in their families. The government says that only one-third of us have ever made this effort, so it provides a tool called "My Family Health Portrait" which can be downloaded for free to your own computer. |
Bottom line:
Bring your family medical history to your next doctor's appointment and have your doctor help analyze disease patterns and your risk for developing certain conditions. It might help him/her decide what medical tests to run and whether other members of your family are at risk for certain diseases. If there is something serious in your health pedigree, genetic counselors can help you analyze and strategize about birth defects or genetic conditions.
See also:
•My Family Health Portrait, A downloadable tool from the U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative to help you learn about and use your family's health history
•Generational Health, Another tool to help you identify your family's medical history
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October 2005 |
