Knowing your family health history is an important part of optimizing your health or a loved one’s health. Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and even depression are known to have a genetic tie. Therefore, if your relatives are diagnosed with these or other conditions you may be more prone to them as well. This is why sharing this information with your chosen primary provider is so important. Wondering how to research family health history? Here are some tips to get you started:

Ask questions

Begin by asking immediate family members like parents, grandparents and siblings if they are aware of relatives who have been diagnosed with genetic or chronic conditions. This is a good place to start because at the very least you will discover what conditions they may have that could indicate you are predisposed to them as well.  Services like Ancestry DNA and 23andMe offer test kits sent directly to your home and mailed back to be analyzed. The results will let you know if there are conditions you may be more likely to develop.

Make the most of family gatherings

The health history of more distant relatives isn’t always as simple to uncover, often because we aren’t interacting as often due to proximity or even just the business of life. It may not seem like the most natural conversation to have but asking questions about the health of your relatives is undoubtedly vital information to have and well worth going outside of your comfort zone in a conversation.

 

Write it down.

When you have uncovered information about your family history, compile it in an organized fashion and save it in a place where it is easily accessible in an emergency. The alska connected a caregiving portal is an excellent place to securely store this and other medical and health information. You can start a free 30-day trial today