Family members share more than just similar looks. You may recognise that you have your father’s nose or your mother’s eyes, but there are some traits that may have been passed along to you from the older generations that are not as easily visible.
In addition to sharing their environment, habits and lifestyle, family members share their genes.
Genes are the basic units of heredity, and although we inherit physical traits from our parents, such as curly hair or athletic ability, they also influence the likelihood of getting certain diseases.
Knowing your family’s health history is crucial, as it includes all these unseen traits that may well increase your risk for many hereditary conditions and diseases.
In fact, your family history is one of the strongest influences on your own risk of developing disease, especially heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.
This ability to transmit genetic information between generations was initially proposed in the 19th century by Austrian scientist and monk Gregor Mendel, now known as the “father of genetics”.
Strangely enough, Mendel uncovered the principles of inheritance not by studying human beings but rather by studying the common pea plant.
By looking at different characteristics of the plants over time and generations, he realised that certain traits were passed down in varying patterns.
The knowledge that traits, including human diseases, can travel through generations as discrete inheritable phenomena and can fall into recognisable patterns is now used by medical professionals and specialists in genetic clinics worldwide.
Patients with a suggestive family history can be seen in a genetics clinic, and a pedigree is generated where a disease is tracked through multiple generations in a family.
Using various testing and sequencing tools, gene mutations can be identified.
Eventually, how does this knowledge help, especially as many people are not fully aware of their own family history?
It is not unusual that members of the older generations died without us knowing the cause, much less their medical history.
Some of the key features of a family history that may raise suspicion are the same disease in more than one close relative or diseases that occur at an earlier age than expected, usually about ten to 20 years before most people get the disease.
Diseases that do not usually affect a certain gender, for example, breast cancer in a male, or certain combinations of diseases within a family, such as breast and ovarian cancer or heart disease and diabetes, may all indicate a genetic basis which can then be passed along the generations.
It is crucial to note, however, that having a certain disease in the family does not guarantee your risk of developing the same disease.
Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer are caused by a combination of factors that include environment, behaviour, and lifestyle.
Therefore, this means that you may have the most to gain from lifestyle changes as well as preventative screening tests.
You cannot change your genes, but you can choose to adopt a healthier lifestyle and change behaviours such as smoking, inactivity, and poor eating habits.
Comprehensive health screening, including mammograms and colorectal cancer screening as well as checking cholesterol and blood pressure, can all reduce the chance of getting a disease.
In Trinidad and Tobago, dedicated genetic clinics are required to be at the forefront of the medical care that we offer daily.
Specialist support and expertise as well as genetic testing and counselling should be considered routine and mandatory in any busy clinic.
In the end, your family’s medical history is more than just a record of diseases that you are doomed to inherit.
Understanding that genetics is a science that can be explored for valuable information has the ability to influence your own health decisions and ultimately guide the course of modern medicine for the foreseeable future.
