Your family’s heart health history is critical to your health.
Details on your brothers’, sisters’, mom’s and dad’s battles with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and weight can provide the information necessary to help you make health and lifestyle decisions for you and your family.
Many risk factors for heart disease can be modified: weight, cholesterol, smoking, hypertension and a sedentary lifestyle. Family history cannot. But, its details can help you and your doctors in the fight to keep you and your family healthy.
The U.S. Surgeon General wants you to assemble the facts and suggests families use the Thanksgiving holiday to start the conversation with family members.
In fact, as “America’s doctor,” Vice Admiral Dr. Vivek H. Murthy has declared Thanksgiving National Family Health History Day.
“The more relatives who are willing to share, the better,” said Jaime Grund, a certified Genetic Counselor with St. Elizabeth Healthcare’s office of Clinical Genetic Services.
Start with simple, direct questions, Grund suggested.
- Do you have any health concerns that need to be followed by a doctor?
- If so, at what age were you diagnosed?
- If someone has passed away, what was their cause of death and age?
“The most important individuals are first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, children) and then continue to branch out from there. For instance, when meeting with a genetic counselor to assess a family medical history, they will typically collect a four-generation pedigree, including first degree relatives all the way out to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins,” explained Grund.
Begin the conversation by explaining that learning more about a family health history may help save lives, said Grund.
“Let relatives know the information they share about their individual health histories will help create an idea of conditions that may cluster in the family, and that knowledge has the potential to benefit the entire family.”
Most people know heart disease, cancer and diabetes run in families. If one generation of a family has high blood pressure, it is not unusual for the next generation, according to the surgeon general. His office offers these tips:
- Write down the names of all blood relatives you need to include.
- Write out the questions to keep the discussion focused.
- Explain to your relatives what you are doing and why it is important.
- Keep a record ““ notes, a tape recording or both.
- Ask one question at a time, including why, how and when. Specifics matter.
- Include chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
- Include serious illnesses, such as cancer and strokes.
- Relaxed family gatherings may provide a good time to talk.
- Respect your relative’s feelings. Some may consider health information private.
Information on National Family Health History Day, celebrated this year on Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, is at http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory. There are links to forms which can be completed online with full privacy or printed and completed in writing.
