Family health history and primary prevention
For those of you who are versed in some of the more universal parlance of the public health set, the term "primary prevention" denotes a familiar concept. Primary prevention is all about preventing bad outcomes for people, to maintain or improve health and to anticipate and head off problems before they become manifest in people's lives. Here, we are trying to use the concept of family health history as another tool for keeping people well by informing them of their risk for chronic diseases.
Family health history is an independent risk factor for several conditions that contribute greatly to the morbidity and mortality of lots of people. Examples of conditions that can run in families include many types of cancer, including the biggies of breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers. There are also families in which other cancers can be very prevalent. For example, our former President, Jimmy Carter, has a remarkable family history of pancreatic cancer. He lost at least a couple of siblings and one parent to this disease. Thankfully for him (and for us), he has so far been spared from this disease.
Other conditions that tend to run in families include cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke and diabetes. Interestingly, we often talk about obesity as being a very potent risk factor for both cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Having a family history of these conditions--especially if the relatives are closely related--is comparable with obesity as a risk factor.
So, if your relatives have all keeled over from chronic diseases, does that mean that you are doomed to their fate? The really good news is that if your relatives have suffered from chronic diseases like cancer or diabetes, you can use your relative's experiences of poor health as a cautionary tale and avoid a similar fate. There is almost always something you can do to allay or greatly reduce your chances of repeating their history. It isn't just about genes, in most cases, but rather about an interaction between environmental and behavioral factors with a susceptible genetic makeup. In other words, there may be some genes that are necessary for disease to occur, but they certainly are not the whole story by any means. Remove any one of the predisposing elements and health is maintained, even if there is a considerable genetic predisposition. So, even though you can't change your genes, you can change your behaviors and your environment (including diet) and stay healthy. For most of us, the family health history of common chronic diseases that we have observed in our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, can be averted by following some pretty basic changes in habits and environments. So, if you can, raise of toast to the health (or lack thereof) to your relatives. By learning from what health conditions affected them, you can up your chances to have a long and happy life!
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Comments
Great article. Family health history is vitally important to health and disease prevention. You may be interested to know there is a new family health history tool called ItRunsInMyFamily.com that helps people create their family pedigree and enter in diseases that run in their family. The web tool is free and open to the public. Check it out!
Posted by: Brandon M Welch | December 26, 2008 6:52 PM