Family History - It's in Your Genes

Have you ever wondered why medical students are taught to ask so many questions when they perform their history & physicals?  For that matter, why your own (family) doctor might be asking about your parents & siblings' health when it's you, after all, who's sitting in front of him/her with a medical concern, not your relatives.  Worse, your family doc then continues on ad nauseum asking about the health of your aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

In other words, why is it so important to know your family history?  Well, like begats like.  We've known for a while that strokes in female 1st degree relatives increase the risk for ischemic stroke (the most common kind - due to blockage) in women.  But how does it affect heart disease risk?  Especially since that variable is left out of both the Framingham risk calculator and the Reynolds Risk calculator (the latter specifically asks for a family history of heart attack, not stroke).

In a study released online this month, the authors compared those who had suffered a heart attack to those who had suffered a stroke and concluded that a family history of stroke in the mother was associated with an increased (more than doubled) risk of heart attack in the daughter.

So the next time you attend one of your boring family gatherings, start asking questions (non-judgmentally, of course) to develop & understand your family tree.  With just a bit more information, the life you save may be yours.