Sometimes, genealogy is a mix of both family history and medical science. It’s a balance of genetic possibilities and the lifestyle choices made by an ancestor or relative. The question becomes, how much of your health is based on genetics, and how much is influenced by the healthy, or unhealthy, choices you make? Some studies show that how long you live is more due to your lifestyle choices than to your genetic makeup.
When you go to see your doctor, he or she will ask you questions about the health of some of your other family members. Your medical family tree reveals quite a bit about what kinds of health issues you may be at risk for, even if you don’t have any symptoms at this moment. This is because some of what makes you at risk for certain diseases or conditions is due to the genetics that your ancestors handed down to you, through the generations. The more your doctor knows about the things your ancestors died from, the more he can advise you about what you can do to avoid the same fate.
However, your family medical history doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have the exact same health experiences as your ancestors did. People are living longer now, on average, than what was once expected. This is due to a number of factors, including advances in medical treatments, and more widespread knowledge about healthy lifestyle choices. It seems that those healthy lifestyle choices have a big influence on how long a person’s lifespan will be, regardless of genetic inheritance.
A study in Sweden looked at a group of men, and noted their lifestyle choices. The study revealed that certain lifestyle choices had more of an influence on total lifespan than heredity did. Those who were non-smokers, who only drank moderate amounts of coffee, and who were still able to do physical work when they reached middle age had a longer life expectancy. Another factor that had a positive influence was if the man made an average to high amount of income.
Another study, done in China, investigated the effect that exercise had on sodium sensitivity in people who had high blood pressure. Often, high blood pressure can run in families. They split the survey group of about 2,000 people into four separate groups, based on how much exercise the person reported having.
For a week, everyone, in all groups, followed a low sodium diet, (about 3,000 mg of sodium). The second week, everyone changed their diet to include 18,000 mg of sodium per day. The results showed that the people who were the most physically active were much less sensitive to the extremely high sodium diet, and had the least increase in their blood pressure as a result of it. It seems that a healthy lifestyle can help some people overcome their genetic inheritance.
Image by Martin Cathrae on Flickr