Officials with the state Department of Public Health are urging the state’s residents to have a different sort of conversation around the dinner table this Thanksgiving – your family health history.
“Knowing your family health history is an important way to understand your risk factors and the preventive steps you can take to keep you and your family healthy,” stated DPH Genomics Coordinator Beverly Burke. “Almost everyone has available to them their family health history, which can be used as the basis for individualized disease prevention.”
Health care professionals have known for a long time that common diseases – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes – and rare diseases – like hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia – can run in families. If one generation of a family has high blood pressure, it is not unusual for the next generation to have similarly high blood pressure. Tracing the illnesses suffered by your parents, grandparents, and other blood relatives can help your doctor predict the disorders to which you may be at risk and take action to keep you and your family healthy.