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Use Holiday Gatherings to Mine for Family
Health History
Newswise, December 14, 2010— If Aunt Madge
will be at Christmas dinner this year, or
Grandma is coming up from Florida to see the
grandbabies, take the chance to dig up some
info on your family health history, when
people who might have some pertinent
knowledge will be close at hand, say
University of Alabama at Birmingham genetics
experts.
“The holidays
are a great time to collect your family
history,” says Lynn Holt, M.S., director of
the School of Health Professions Genetic
Counseling program. “Most people don’t know
much about the family history beyond their
first-degree relatives, their own parents
and siblings.”
Talk to
grandparents or great-grandparents and make
detailed records on their immediate family —
parents, siblings and children. You want to
jot down names, year of birth, year of death
and any health problems that person may have
had. Ask if any siblings died during
childhood and if so, why? Many people don’t
like to talk about a sibling who died young,
but knowing if it happened — and why — can
produce very valuable information.
“We sometimes
hear people say they’ve been told their
mother’s brother dropped dead at age 20, for
example,” says Holt. “It’s important to find
out why; was it because of a genetic heart
condition that you might have inherited, or
is it simply that brother was guilty of some
accident that nobody wants to talk about?”
Holt says ask
if there is any cancer in the family. If so,
ask the kind of cancer and at the age family
members first were diagnosed. Age of
diagnosis is more medically valuable than
age of death in determining heritable
conditions.
Ask similar
questions about heart disease, diabetes,
mental health conditions or other common
conditions in adulthood. Holt also says to
look into any environmental exposures that
may explain family health problems such as
occupational exposures, smoking or
pollution.
And it’s
probably best not to bring the subject up
over dinner with a crowd. Try to find some
quiet time with each member of the older
generation and begin the conversation. Many
older family members welcome the chance to
share the family story and memories of loved
ones who have passed away, Holt says.
After you
collect all this information, share it with
your physician to help determine if there
are certain health conditions for which you
need to be evaluated based on your family
history.
The National
Society of Genetic Counselors has a website
with more information about family history
collections athttp://www.nsgc.org/About/FamilyHistoryTool/tabid/226/Default.aspx
About UAB
Known for its innovative and
interdisciplinary approach to education at
both the graduate and undergraduate levels,
the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
is the state of Alabama’s largest employer
and an internationally renowned research
university and academic health center; its
professional schools and specialty
patient-care programs are consistently
ranked among the nation’s top 50. Find more
information at www.uab.edu and www.uabmedicine.org.
