Though it’s good to leave the past in the past, sometimes you need to revisit it in order to figure out your future, especially when it comes to your family history. Not only can it be eye-opening to rediscover who your family was back in the day, but it can also be very beneficial to do so. There are so many hidden gems that you can learn about. In some cases, you can figure out if you have more family members than you thought you did and how close they may be. In other instances, you get to learn what your loved ones did in the earlier days, like what their occupation was, if they traveled often, or played a part in any type of life-changing and history-making movements such as the civil rights movement or did something remarkable for their community. Learning these things can impact future career decisions for you. Going back and learning about your family’s history can be very insightful. It can even be extremely helpful when it comes to your health. Your family history could tell you all you need to know about your future health.
How Genes And Genetics Work
Your genes are the makeup of your body that basically explains how it’s going to function. Think of them as a playbook or an instruction manual. Your genes contain “instructions” that tell the cells in your body to make a specific type of molecule. This molecule is called protein.
These proteins are what your body needs to stay healthy and each gene helps determine your features such as your eye color and your height. This is your DNA, the chemical that your genes are made of. Your genes are inherited by your mother and father and this is how the word genetics was determined.
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Genetics is the study of genes and heredity. Certain traits from your parents’ genes are passed down to you but it’s through changes in the DNA sequence.
For example: if your mother has brown eyes and your father has blue eyes, you will get brown eyes because the brown-eyed gene is more dominant, hence a change in the DNA sequence.
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Why It’s Important To Know The History Of Your Family’s Health
You should be aware of the history of your family’s health for many reasons.
One reason is because it can help you understand why you’re living with certain medical conditions or experiencing certain symptoms in the present. If the women in your family have a history of heavy bleeding and painful cramps during their menstrual cycle, there’s a big possibility that those traits can be passed down to you. As well as suffering from mental health conditions such as major depression, PMDD and anxiety. These can also be caused by genetics and passed down to you from your parents.
Another reason why it’s important to know the history of your family’s health is because it can help you prepare for the future. Is diabetes something that’s common in your family? What about heart failure or high blood pressure?
What This Could Prepare You For
Discovering the history of your family’s health can help you in more ways than you may know. If your family has a history of developing breast cancer, then learning about it sooner rather than later can help you when it comes to early detection.
Why? Because since you know it runs in your family, it should encourage you to go get a mammogram and be aware of the changes in your breast and body.
It could also help you prepare for your future, especially if you see children in them. If one of your parents has a copy of the sickle cell gene, then you will have the sickle cell trait. So if you and your partner both have a copy of the sickle cell gene, then your child will develop sickle cell anemia because, in order to be diagnosed with this disease, both parents have to have the gene. This is very important to know and can definitely be learned through talking about the history of your parents and their families’ health.
How To Go About Understanding Their History So You Can Prepare For The Future
The best thing to do, if you can, is to ask questions. If you have elders in your family, research some common illnesses such as hypertension, breast cancer, diabetes, etc. and ask if these medical conditions run in your family. Make sure to do it for both your mother and father’s side if possible.
Another way is to start getting tested and checked out regularly. Knowing how your body is currently operating can not only put you at an advantage if certain illnesses do run in your family, but it can also help with prevention if you catch it early.
However, you decide to go about it, learn about the health of your family members, even the ones who are no longer here with you. You never know what you might find and you never know what you might be preventing.
