About 10 percent to 15 percent of people with colon cancer have a family history of the disease. Knowing about Grandma can help you take steps, such as regular colonoscopy exams. Up to 25 percent of children of alcoholics are themselves at high risk for alcohol abuse. Knowing about Grandpa s drinking problem might encourage you and your children to avoid alcohol or drink carefully. Those are just a few reasons for starting and keeping a family medical history.
Every family historian knows about the family diseases.
Scientists have used this information in the search for disease-causing genes. Start your own history with your father s father and mother s mother, and go back as far as possible. Find out what killed your relatives, and at what age. Organize the information into a genogram, a family tree with names, dates of birth and death. Make the boxes extra large to hold all the health and lifestyle information for each person.