Heart disease family history
Heart disease family history
It is understandable that you may be concerned if you have a heart disease family history. If one or more of your realtives have had heart problems, especially at an earlier age than you might expect, then this is something you should look at closely.
To determine if you have a heart disease family history requires you to look at your relatives and ask the following three questions:
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Do you have one or more family members whose first sign of a heart condition occurred prematurely. By prematurely we mean at age age before you would expect this to happen in the general population which is different for men and women. It is important to consider the earliest age for the relative or relatives since it makes a difference if they have a thrombosis at say 35 but went on to 60 before having a heart attack. Heart conditions can have many symptoms including cardiovascular surgery, peripheral vascular disease (PVD), heart attack or stroke.
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How near a relation are those that had heart problems. A distant cousin is much less significant to estimating your risk than a parent, brother or sister.
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How many relatives would fit into these to questions.
Having looked at your relatives you may want to use this information to get a more considered view as to whether you have a heart disease family history. As you might imagine each family differs in the number, ages and heart problems that may have occurred and there is no simple formula that can be applied in all cases.
A good suggestion is record your data and to draw a family tree, sometimes called a pedigree drawing. Lets look at this example:
Lets say you are Peter in this family. Peter is marked with the black arrow. The same works just as well for women. Peter is 48 years old and has an brother Bret and an sister Ann. Their parents are Henry and Rachel. If you look at the colored boxes in Henry’s square and the key above you can see he had peripheral vascular disease (PVD) at 45, a heart attack at 48 and shortly after had cardiovascular surgery. He died aged 50. Martha who is Henry’s mother, died from a heart attack aged 49. Peter’s mother Rachel has shown no symptoms of heart disease but her father Ralph had a stroke at 79.
On the family tree you see that Peter, Henry and Rachel have diabetes. Peter and others have hypertension (high blood pressure). Peter also has high cholesterol and his body mass index (BMI) of 26 shows he is overweight.
Although this drawing was done mainly for Peter it is also useful to his brother, sister and and their children.
If Peter were to show this drawing to his doctor he or she would be able to beter judge Peter’s risk for heart disease that comes from this family history.
This drawing was produced using the MyHeartRisk heart risk assessment program which is a simple online way for you to enter data about yourself and your family members. Not only can you print your family tree you also get risk charts and a detailed personal report with health recommendations
If you have the feeling that your heart disease family history needs follow up then why not get started.
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This is part of the MyHeartRisk (My Heart Risk) series on how to prevent heart disease including:
- Family history of heart disease
- How is your heart like your car?
- My heart risk score
- Your heart disease risk calculator and report writer
- Heart attack risk
- BMI and heart disease
MyHeartRisk mission: To help users better understand their personal heart disease risk factors and how to advocate for themselves with their health care providers for a more healthy and potentially longer life. To ask the question ‘What is my heart risk’ and get not only a personalized response but to have a partner on the road to improved health and longevity.
Join our MyHeartRisk online family by taking our newsletter then we can keep you informed and to get you started you will receive a free ebook
‘Preventing your heart disease’
Take the time to investigate your heart disease family history while you still have time to talk to your family members.
