Would knowing your child inherited your family's worst genes make you worry more? If it does, you're in the minority according to a new study in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
Researchers at the University of Michigan used survey information from more than one thousand parents to conclude parents are just as worried about their family's medical history as they would be by the results of genetic testing. As testing for genetic risk factors has become more accessible to the general public, healthcare practitioners have worried that parents will overreact to the results. This study has done much to allay that fear, putting the observed risk factors (a grandparents' battle with cancer, for example) above test results in making parents fret.
Personally, I think forewarned is forearmed. When my father-in-law learned a medical condition he was suffering from could be inherited, I confess my first thoughts were of my daughter. I pushed my husband to get tested - so we'd be able to act if he had inherited the condition and keep him around to one day walk her down the aisle. We also needed to know for her sake - to see if she'd need a test and then treatment as well. The threat of the family history had me sweating bullets until my husband's test came back negative. The genetic line had stopped with my father-in-law. Phewwww.
What's scarier? The possible or the absolutely positive?
Image: LA Times
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