Thanksgiving is National Family History Day
Time to learn about ailments

BY SUSAN SIMPSON

Published: November 27, 2008

You know that Uncle Don likes his turkey without gravy, and Grandma Ann puts nuts in the cranberry sauce.

But do you know if either of them has suffered a stroke, lost a parent to cancer or takes insulin shots for diabetes?

aDoctors say family gatherings are the perfect time to ask those questions and compile a family medical history.

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.

"There’s almost no disease that doesn’t have a genetic component,” said Dr. John J. Mulvihill, a medical geneticist at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

"Some people are fatalistic about genetics, but I’m here to say there’s plenty to do about breaking the burden that cancer would be on a family,” he said.

Family History Day

Acting Surgeon General Steven Galson has declared Thanksgiving 2008 to be the fifth annual National Family History Day.

He urges Americans to talk about and to write down the health problems that seem to run in their families.

Learning the family health history may help ensure a longer, healthier future together.

Mulvihill says questions should be asked of and about relatives going back several generations.

Asking what illnesses or diseases run in the family or how individual relatives died is a good way to start.

Some diseases have ethnic origins so it’s also important to know a family’s heritage, Mulvihill said.

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