Genetic vs Hereditary: Family History is Not Your Destiny
My dad died of heart disease at 54.
My grandmother battled cancer almost all of her adult life.
My whole family is overweight. It’s just my destiny.
These facts break my heart. Not only for the loss of a loved one, but also for the potential loss of more life because we think we’re “destined” or “doomed for the same fate as family members. We give our power away to the “inevitability” of disease because “it’s just in our genes.”
Genetics is not destiny. Your genetic inheritance only accounts for 4% of your disease risk.
The other 96%? You guess it - diet, exercise, stress, and other lifestyle/environmental factors. That's empowering news!
Empowering, and maybe a bit scary because the responsibility for making the changes necessary to improve quality of life fall largely on your own shoulders.
But I have more good news for you - even small changes such as hitting your 5 a day for vegetables and getting at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise daily will have dramatic effects on your quality of life, energy, mood, and overall health.
And when it comes to common lifestyle diseases (diabetes, heart disease, neurological disorders, autoimmune disease), the genetic risk is even less than that 4%.
Genetic risk is defined as the contribution our genes play in the chance we have of developing certain illness or disease. The word to highlight here is “chance”. It is not a death sentence or an absolute that you can count on (or resign yourself to).
But the more important part of this conversation is what’s empowering - heredity.
Heredity, in this context, refers to the learned behaviors that are passed down from generation to generation, or between generations. The food we grew up eating, the activities we did for fun, the ways we learned to cook and care for ourselves. The self-talk we learned, patterns of neglect, or abuse. How we emotionally care for ourselves.
Let’s Bring it Home
You may see a family pattern of heart disease, but what you may also notice is a family pattern of high-fat and processed foods, a lack of exercise, and large portion sizes. What’s often behind a “genetic” predisposition is a learned pattern of behavior that can be corrected and the outcomes often reversed (as has been shown by Dr. Dean Ornish and others in the case of heart disease and diabetes).
What we often think of as our genetic destiny is simply inherited food preferences, ways of eating, habits for exercise and caring for ourselves that are no more a hard-coded predetermined fate than our preference for a certain TV show.
You DO have the power to change your health outcomes, to change your life - at any stage - and increase your chance for a long, healthy and happy life.
Next Steps & Additional Resources
Reflect on where in your life you’ve given your power away to what you thought was a genetic inevitability.
Reflect on your current eating and exercise habits and identify where learned behavior may be more at play than genetics.
Check out Program for Reversing Heart Disease and UnDo It! by Dean Ornish MD for more information on the ability of a plant-based diet to reverse heart disease, diabetes, and other lifestyle diseases.
With warmth and hope for the future,
Emma