Your Family Health History is Your Genetic Legacy

It may seem counter-intuitive in these days of extraordinary medical advances, personalized medicine and genomics, but an old-fashioned family health history is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your family.    And Thanksgiving, when families gather together is the best time to gather some of the information that exists only in the memories of your older relatives.  What did your grandparents die of?  Did they have any chronic diseases? Was your Aunt Mary deaf?  Did Uncle Phil have Parkinson’s?  What about the uncle you never knew who died when he was 10.

 “The bottom line is that knowing your family history can save your life," U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said.  "When a health care professional is equipped with a patient's family health history, he or she can easily assess the inherent risk factors and begin tests or treatment, even before any disease is evident."  

The U.S. Surgeon General has declared Thanksgiving Day is the second annual National Family History Day and urges all Americans to talk about and write down the health problems that seem to run in their family.  After all, common diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, along with the rarer ones of cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia run in families.

While you can’t choose your relatives, you can chose what to do with your life.  Collecting and sharing information about diseases that run in your family is not only the key to optimal personal health, it can be just as valuable to future generations as a financial legacy.

"The ultimate genomic test is available now and it's called a family history. It captures not only shared genes but also shared environment, shared values, shared behavior and shared culture," says Dr Muin Khoury, director of the Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “You have half your genes in common with your parents, brothers and sisters. That’s 15,000 genes—more than we can study with any lab test.”

With a family health history, you and your doctor a doctor can decide what tests you should have, what conditions to watch for and what you can do to avoid disease.  Your doctor can also calculate your risk for certain diseases, identify other members of your family who are at risk for developing the same disease and calculate your risk of passing certain conditions to your children.

While a family health history is the most important tool your doctor can have to deliver truly personalized medical care, few doctors take the time to take detailed histories.  Among primary care physicians, family histories are discussed only about half the time at new visits and less than a quarter of the time at follow-up visits.  And the time spent on talking about family history is not very much - only about 2½ minutes.  Whether because it’s too expensive or it’s not reimbursed, doctors don’t spend much time collecting the information that can be of most use to you.  

So, now that you know your family tree is the most important genetic test of all, it’s time for you to take charge. A family history is something only you can do.  Only you, not your doctor, have the information, the resources (especially your older relatives) the time and the self-interest to construct your family medical tree.

How to construct your family health history.

We all intuitively know that our family health history is important, a fact confirmed by a recent survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that 96% of Americans say knowing family history is important.  Yet, only one-third of us have ever tried to gather and organize their family history.

Many of us don’t know where to start.  It used to be that we would learn how people in the family died or got sick when families would get together over Sunday dinner or for holidays. Nowadays, families are much more dispersed and, unless there is a reason, not many people remember what their grandparents died of, especially if they died many years ago.  Still, older people remember a lot about their family.   They’ve heard the stories and been to the wakes and funerals.

This vital family information is scattered in many people’s minds.  I would venture that most of us keep better track of the warranties on our car and stereo, than we do of our family health information.  It’s time for us to realize that being aware of our family health history is an important part of staying well lifelong. You have the resources available to you in the form of your family, particularly your older relatives.  But, if family health information is not written down, it’s not of much use to anyone.   Fortunately, the government has launched several new initiatives to help.

Take a look at  the Surgeon General’s Family History Initiative.   Take advantage too of the computerized tool from the Department of Health and Human Services.   My Family Portrait is a web-enabled program that runs on any computer that ís connected to the web and running an up-to-date version of any major Internet browser.   My Family Portrait helps you organize your family history information, print it out for presentation to your family doctor, save your family history information to your own computer and share it with other family members.

Do It Now
The sooner you have a solid family health history, the more you know.  The more you know, the sooner you and your doctor can practice preventive medicine.   Don’t wait to talk to your older relatives.  They know a lot about the health of older relatives that is difficult to reconstruct once they’ve died.

“This is a new era in medicine,” says Dr. Ralph Snyderman of Duke University, which launched a personalized health-care program for its employees last January. “People think that genomics will have an impact in their children’s lifetime, but it is happening now. I urge them to rush to take advantage of it for the sake of living longer, healthier lives.”

Andrew B. Crocker of Amarillo, Extension program specialist in  gerontology and health, said older adults aren't the beneficiaries of  medical histories, but their children and grandchildren are.

 "If you're 65 or 70 years old, you know what's wrong with you," he  said. "A family medical history is something older people do for upcoming  generations. It's more important for younger people. A family medical history can be just as valuable to coming generations  as a financial legacy”

Time with your family is valuable and will be even more so once you gather your family health history.  You will have even more to be thankful for.   Happy  Thanksgiving.