Has anyone with ‘bad’ genetics lived a healthy long life?

[Kam867]

My dad died mid 40s of a rare type of cancer, he was diagnosed in his 30s, at the time my parents were told this wasn’t something that was genetic.

As I’m getting closer to the age he was diagnosed I am contemplating my mortality often, I take good care of my health, probably over and above the average person due to what happened to my dad. However as far as I’m aware there aren’t many known lifestyle factors that contributed to his cancer, it was framed at the time as just pure bad luck.

I have young kids and have only just started my career. Im too scared to google about the disease my dad had, and I don’t actually know the specific name for it anyway, so any googling I did do wouldn’t be very accurate.

I guess it’s triggering a bit of health anxiety in me, and I’m just intrigued to know if anyone has lived a healthy long life after their parent/s died young of disease. It seems everything I read about health frames family history as incredibly important.

I haven’t had a long life (yet!) but I do have a family history of cancer at a young age, on both sides. I recently went through genetic screening and was told I don’t have any markers - my family cancer was likely just bad luck/lifestyle factors. The counsellor told me most cancers are not genetic but related to lifestyle. So while family history can be important it’s often not decisive. If you’re worried, worth undergoing genetic screening - either it will put your mind at rest or help you identify proactive measures like screening or preventative treatments. Good luck!

Family history often is extremely important, and if you've got a family history of a potentially life-limiting condition it's worth finding out if there are factors that could affect your own risk of developing the condition. I'd encourage you to be brave, try to find out more details about your dad's condition from other family members, get on to Dr Google, find out all the information you can, and take it to your GP to discuss if you're not entirely reassured (I was a GP and never minded people bringing questions like that). A lot of cancers that affect young people are rare and don't appear to be hereditary, and it's likely that you'll discover that your risk of that specific condition is no higher than anyone else's. But if there was something that could be done to reduce your risk - tests, lifestyle changes - it's good to know as early as possible.

As it happens, I have a parent who has lived to be a lot older than both of her own parents, their brothers and sisters, her own brother and all but one of her cousins, and her survival can't be explained solely by her having looked after herself better. But that's not relevant to your situation.

My mum had throat cancer and died, her brother had oesophageal cancer and died and her sister had an aneurysm and died in her 30s. I went to see an ENT to ask about genetic risk and they couldn't have been more dismissive if they tried! Didn't look at me, didn't run any tests, just said it wasn't genetic and showed me the door in 2 mins.

It's hard isn't it especially when you get near the age they were when they died. Other than trying to stay healthy yourself, I don't think there's much more you can do. I've actually stopped thinking about it now - I figure there's not much more I can do (and I got to 50 without being diagnosed with any of those things which is more than I can say for them).