Sometimes, people like to joke about having “nuts” in their family tree. Family gatherings can be filled with humor and interesting memories if your aunts or uncles are a little batty or your cousins are somewhat eclectic. There is another type of “nut” that some people have in their family tree that is more problematic. Nut allergies have become increasingly common over the past decade or so, and allergies have been linked to heredity.
Allergies to foods and environmental triggers are yet another reason why knowing your family’s health history is so important. Allergies occur when your immune system reacts in an unusually strong way to a substance that is harmless to other people. The severity of an allergic response to a food or environmental substance can vary from mild (a runny nose) to life-threatening (swelling of the throat and difficulty breathing).
While allergies are linked to heredity, there is no guarantee that you will have allergies just because a parent or other sibling has allergies. What you do get in your genes is not an allergy itself, but the tendency to develop allergies. To make matters even more complicated, the allergy that you develop could be completely different than the allergy that your mother or your brother has because heredity does not determine the type of allergy, only the risk of being allergic to one or more foods or other substances. Sometimes, allergies change over time. This is especially common with infants, who often outgrow many food allergies by the time they are a few years old.
How can knowing your family’s health history help you to avoid allergies or help you to prevent your children from developing allergies? If you see allergies in your family tree, there is no guarantee that you or your children will have allergies, but it is useful to let your doctor and your children’s doctors know about them. That way, when you bring Johnny to the doctor for that stuffy nose that you just can’t seem to get rid of, the doctor will be on notice that it could be an allergic reaction to something. Since some of the symptoms of allergies are the same as cold and flu symptoms, this can help to bring about an accurate diagnosis faster, especially during the winter months where any sniffle is likely to be labeled a cold unless there’s reason to believe otherwise.
Knowing your family’s history of allergies is just part of the larger picture of knowing your family’s health history. By learning about your family’s health, you can help your doctors give you and your family the best possible care.