Family Diseases environmental, not just genetic

Studies at the University of Nottingham, including 8,000 married couples found that they are at risk of suffering the same disease, particularly with respect to asthma and depression.

The conclusion is that this is because they share the same environment. This trend was first noticed by GPs when they discovered that, if couples attended blood pressure clinics together, both partners often had high readings. It was later discovered that the pattern was more widespread.

Age, obesity and smoking status were all taken into consideration in the tests and it was discovered that the partners of people with asthma, depression, high cholesterol and peptic ulcer were more likely to share the same conditions.

Edith Maskell of Bromley Health Management agreed "When we set up a family with a new partner, we both bring aspects of our previous family lives with us. I always tell my patients, just because your relatives have always suffered from a particular condition, it isn't inevitable that you will suffer from the same conditions. You need to make changes in your lifestyle - if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got".

Couples and relatives may also share the same attitudes towards health and life in general which could contribute to a pattern of similar conditions.

Julia Hippisley-Cox, who led the research wrote in the British Medical Journal "The high increased risks of disease within married couples support the idea that shared environmental factors in addition to genetic or distant exposures contribute to the development of disease". It is therefore suggested that if one family member needs to make changes in relation to their health, changes should take place within the whole family.

Friday, 4 October 2002