Know Your Family History
| Your personal medical records are important when it comes to tracking illnesses and medical problems you have or may develop through your lifetime. Among the parts of your medical records should be your family medical history. What types of conditions did your grandfather suffer from? Your aunt? Your mother? Tracking diseases and conditions suffered by blood relatives can help you reveal any risk factors you may have. This type of information may be helpful for diagnosing problems, and may help you prevent development of such problems by knowing what habit changes may be needed now. Once you've assembled the information you need, share it with your doctor. Your doctor will want to keep a copy of it and will likely find it very helpful, if not right away, then sometime in your future. In general, you will find the health information about blood relatives, back two to three generations, from both your mother's and father's families to be helpful to you. |
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| These relatives are:
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| Even if these relatives have died, their health information
may be important to you. Do not include information about anyone not related to you by blood, including your spouse's family, or step-parents or step-siblings or children. Since they are related only by marriage, their health history will not directly affect your health. There are two keys to the information you will collect. First, you are looking for relatives who may have genetic health problems you or your children may have inherited (or, in the case of children not yet born, may inherit when they are.) Second, you are looking for trends that may follow you. Does your father have high cholesterol? You may develop high cholesterol, too. Is your mother a twin? If twins run in your family, you might be predisposed to have twins, too. |
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To watch a tip about family history, click here. |
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