A new study suggests that fainting might run in families. There seems to be a genetic basis that influences whether or not a person is prone to fainting, (but it isn’t due to a “fainting gene”). Researchers came to this conclusion after studying twins.
When I think about the concept of fainting being something that runs in a family, I think of the Victorian Era, and the corset. In the 1830’s, it was believed that a corset was a medical necessity. It was believed that women were fragile, and required the support that a corset can provide in order for her body to be strong enough to hold her up.
Today, of course, we recognize that women’s bodies are perfectly capable of holding them up, without the need for a corset. However, back then, corsets were imperative, and often tightened beyond the point of reasonable safety. Corsets deformed women’s internal organs, caused miscarriages, and restricted women’s lung capacity to the point where they would faint. Perhaps some of them fell onto a “fainting couch”.
It is entirely possible that a genealogist might find that some of their female, Victorian, ancestors were prone to fainting. It is easy to see why that happened. Obviously, a corset is not the only thing that can cause a person to faint. There could be medical reasons, or environmental reasons, that are contributing factors.
A new study has taken a look at twins in order to learn more about why fainting seems to run in some families. A group of researchers in Australia and Germany recruited 36 pairs of identical twins and 21 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins as volunteers for the study. They used the Australian Twin Registry to locate potential volunteers.
Each pair of twins that was selected for the study had at least one twin who had, in the past, a confirmed fainting episode. The results of the study were interesting.
About 57% of the twins in the study said that they reacted to things like the sight of blood, pain, prolonged standing, scary thoughts, and other factors. Others said they have fainted due to illness or dehydration. The study found that identical twins were much more likely to have a situation where both twins experienced fainting than were the pairs of fraternal twins.
Overall, the researchers concluded that the tendency to faint could be partially due to genetics. At the same time, though, they don’t think that there is a specific fainting gene. Instead, the tendency to faint runs in families and is probably expressed by a series of genes, much like height or skin color is.
Image by Vegan Feast Catering on Flickr