Family Medical History- How Your Family Tree Can Help Prevent Disease
Questions about your family history are some of the most important questions that your doctor will ask you during your visit to the office. What your doctor is looking for by asking about conditions that “run in” your family is to see if there is a pattern of certain health conditions which may affect you at some point in your life.
Having a family member who has, for example Diabetes, places you at higher risk to someday become Diabetic. If your doctor knows this ahead of time, than (s)he may be able to help you prevent getting Diabetes by encouraging more exercise, more weight loss or by having you screened for Diabetes more frequently.
Here are some tips on how knowing your family history and communicating your family medical history to your doctor can help prevent disease.
Lifestyle changes such as regular exercise and eating healthy foods can help prevent disease, but if you know that you may be at risk for a certain condition, knowing your family history may help encourage you to take that extra step to have a healthy lifestyle.
Your doctor can also help encourage you to live healthier and speak to you about living a healthy lifestyle more regularly at your office visits, if (s)he knows about your family history.
Lifestyle changes are important, but knowing when you need to get screened for a disease is even more important. Take this for example – if you have a first degree family member with colon cancer, then you will need to start getting screening colonoscopies 10 YEARS BEFORE the age that your family member was diagnosed. For example, if your mother was diagnosed with colon cancer when she was 50, your first colonoscopy should be when you are 40.
Knowing is more than half the battle. Imagine not having the ability to know what changes should be made to your life in order to be healthier. If you have a true understanding of your family history and know what conditions occur in your family tree, then you can prioritize which risk factors are most important for you to change.
If Diabetes is in your family then exercise and weight loss are the most important risk factors for you to concentrate on.
It is important to remember that just because a condition is in your family history, it does not mean that you are going to automatically have the condition. It may just not be in your genes, but in you and your family’s lifestyle choices and environment.
If everyone in your family exercised very little and was overweight then it is not a surprise that Diabetes or heart disease occurs in your family. Recognizing the lifestyle choices of your family members that may have contributed to them having a certain disease is also very important.
Environment also has a great deal to do with your family medical history. Asthma frequently occurs in families. This could be from a genetic cause, but also many families are exposed to the same home environment which may include allergens and other triggers for asthma.
When you report your family medical history to your doctor, also include any commonalities in lifestyle and environment between you and your family members.
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Article by The OurHealth Writing Team
This month OurFocus is on Family Medical History.
To read more about the importance of family medical history you can also go to the following link.
www.mayoclinic.com/health/medical-history/HQ01707
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