Knowledge is Power

Knowing your father and his brother both died of heart attacks doesn’t mean you’ve discovered your destiny, according to Rebecca Riseman, R.N., a nurse practitioner at Mills-Peninsula Health Services. But collecting that information can be part of a long-term plan to protect against heart disease, she says.

"You don’t need to be a health practitioner to draw up a family health history," she said. "But being a bit of a detective can help."

Where to start?
Create a family tree including great grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and siblings. Get in touch with your relatives and find out as much as you can about the major medical conditions of each person. Map out the relationships between people -- go back to great grandparents and include great aunts and uncles and note illnesses, age at diagnosis, lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcoholism or obesity, age at death and cause of death, she suggests.

Look for patterns
The next step is to look for patterns of diseases that tend to run in families. Heart disease (including hypertension), arthritis, diabetes, depression, certain cancers, and alcoholism are among the conditions that have shown to be hereditary.

Share with your doctor
One of the most important steps is to share the history with your health practitioner. Your doctor can make sure you get the right kinds of screenings, whether it’s for hypertension, cholesterol or osteoporosis, based on your current health and what your family history reveals.