Quote:
Originally Posted by theking
It sounds as if heart problems may a genetic issue in your family...when was your last physical?
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It is, but mostly on my dad's side. All of these relatives are on my mom's side, and that's a pretty huge family -- 12 kids total, all but one married with kids, many of their kids have kids. There are 6 generations in some of the families. Last count was over 200 family members and growing. So there are bound to be a few with heart troubles in the mix.
But this I think may be more of a lifestyle thing. The one cousin in BC was a heavy drinker. The cousin with the anyeurism has been a heavy smoker for many years and I don't think he's maintained a healthy diet either.
Just the one uncle is mystery to me, as he's never been a smoker, he's not much of a drinker, he's lived an outdoorsy life for ALL of his life thus far, and his diet I'd say is very much on the healthy side, at least for the most part. He does love his comfort food.
I wouldn't chalk this up to anything hereditary.
On my dad's side however, he had 8 brothers and one sister, all of whom are gone now. Each of his brother's AND my grandfather on that side all died of heart complications. My dad is the only exception, and he's always done a lot of walking and excersizing every day and maintained a very healthy diet... largely I think due to the fact he was well aware of his family history.
Me I've always taken the cue from my dad and have also lived an active healthy life with a good diet, have played lots of sports and such over the years. I also get checked out at the doc's regularly (except of late, haven't been in a while) and I've always shown well in all tests, good BP, heartrate, etc. Of course none of that is ever an absolute guarantee that one won't experience heart problems, you just do as much as you can and pretty much hope for the best.
So far so good here though.