Ancestry Magazine

A woman was diagnosed with breast cancer at 60. At that age, no one really thought much about it, except one daughter who wasn’t even 30 and at little risk herself. She realized that two of her mother’s aunts had also had breast cancer—one of them at age 37.

Three people with cancer in two generations? That raised a genetic red flag. The woman’s children and grandchildren started filing in for tests. That was when doctors discovered another daughter’s breast cancer, perhaps years before it would have been found otherwise. If the daughter had waited until 40 or later for a mammogram, says Vicke Venne, a genetic counselor at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, “it would have been maybe a three-year-old cancer instead.” And that could have been too late.

Who’s at Risk?

All sorts of diseases, or a predisposition toward them, can run in families. Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hemophilia, sickle-cell anemia, high blood pressure. The list goes on and on.

Most of us take a do-I-really-want-to-know approach to finding out what diseases our family tree might predispose us to. But Venne, and every other expert in the field, agrees it’s a step that’s potentially too important not to be taken. And it’s one that doesn’t take long to complete.

Setting aside all the sci-fi scares about genetic testing and designer babies, the reason for gathering a family health history isn’t doom and gloom—it’s prevention. Just because your father had skin cancer doesn’t mean you’ll get it, but if you know you have a higher risk for developing melanoma, you might slather on the sunscreen and remember to grab a hat.

A look at your family health history might enable your doctor to head off a heart problem at the pass. Or that same doctor might suggest you see a genetic counselor, like Venne. Maybe a cluster of type-2 diabetes is the motivation you need to lay off the junk food and take up running 5-Ks instead. After all, we all know the value of an ounce of prevention.

Direction from the Pros

Dr. Thomas Shawker of the National Institutes of Health and author of Unlocking Your Genetic History has the short answer for why people should create a family medical history: “To see if they or their children are at risk either for a known genetic disease or for one that . . . has a genetic component.” And U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona is even more blunt: “Knowing your family’s medical history can save your life.”

Creating such a personal, even private, history for the people in your family tree may seem a little daunting. But it’s not.

A family health history is essentially a family tree that tracks the broken branches, blights, and beetles that have troubled it over the years. Cold, flu, mumps, chicken pox, and a sprained ankle caused by jumping off the jungle gym aren’t included. The focus here is any disease with a genetic component that can be passed from generation to generation.

For this ancestral chart, along with names and dates, you’ll want to note whether anybody has had one of the Surgeon General’s big six: heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or diabetes. Other health problems to include are Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, depression, high cholesterol, infertility, miscarriages, deafness, arthritis, asthma, learning disabilities, and allergies.

Going Somewhere with the Subject

Bill Hockett, executive vice president of communications at Myriad Genetics, a genetic research and testing company that makes tools that can be used to determine a person’s risk for cancer, emphasizes the importance of accurate information. “My grandmother died of cancer,” he says. “We were told it was stomach cancer, but it was actually ovarian cancer.” Hockett attributes the misinformation to society’s attitude at the time—his grandmother died in an era when people weren’t comfortable talking about anything associated with reproductive organs.

Because treatment and detection can vary so greatly from one disease to the next, and because so many more conditions are treatable today, accuracy is integral. So is going back further than just the members of your household. At the very least, Shawker recommends charting medical conditions back to grandparents on both sides, and preferably on to great-grandparents, “if the medical information is reliable.” As you build your chart, Shawker says, look for patterns or “clusters of the same common disease, especially those common diseases such as stroke or heart disease occurring at an early age.”

Shawker advises branching out as well. “Go laterally to those cousins, aunts, and uncles that you haven’t seen in years.” While these are second-degree relatives, you still share 25 percent of your genes.

Collecting Facts

In 2004, the Surgeon General declared Thanksgiving Day as National Family History Day to encourage families to use holiday get-togethers as a time and place to talk about family health. While this may seem a little macabre up front, think about it: who doesn’t like to complain about their little aches and pains?

When you sit down to collect family medical information, realize that due to privacy laws, researching medical records is almost entirely out of the question. But social gatherings are not.

Start at the family reunion. Pass out a survey or make some phone calls. Look for clues in death certificates and obituaries. Talking to other family members is important because your genetic history doesn’t belong strictly to you—you share half your genes with all your first-degree relatives (children, parents, siblings), a quarter with your second-degree relatives, and so on. Any health history you gather is part of their health history, too.

And with all of those ounces of prevention—that’s got to be worth more than a pound or two of cure.

Paul Rawlins is a writer and proud owner of his own recently created family health history—with a gap here and there that he’ll try to get over at the next family reunion.