Acquiring genetic literacy is one of the most important things a person can do to promote their own and their family's health. Family history-genetics and the shared environment-is a significant risk factor for cancer as well as other common diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A good understanding of family health history should increasingly be used to personalise health mess...

This paper is an addendum to [FH]. We reprove the main theorem of that paper by using Grothendieck groups of modules over certain DGAs. While the changes to the argument in [FH] are largely cosmetic, our approach shortens the proof from 25 pages down to 10 and greatly clarifies the overall structure. The authors of [FH] describe their proof as both “tedious” and “cumbersome”, whereas the approa...

Three dermatoglyphic traits, viz; finger patterns, finger ridge counts, and palmer a-b ridge counts of 57 (M-29; F-28) and 64 (M-29; F-35). Schizophrenics with and without positive family history respectively, and 65 controls (M-30, F-35), were analysed to determine their level of fluctuating asymmetry.Uniformly higher fluctuating asymmetry was observed in the loop ridge counts of second digits...

Linear focal elastosis is an uncommon disorder typically occurring in the back region, which clinically presents as band-like striae, having a histological focal increase in abnormal elastic fibers. Until now, linear focal elastosis occurring in patients with a family history have been rarely reported. Here, we present one such case, of linear focal elastosis which occurred in a brother and sis...

Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is longer in association with advanced paternal age, but this association has not been examined along with family history (FH) in schizophrenia. LTL was measured by PCR and compared across cases and controls as part of a study to examine the characteristics of paternal age related schizophrenia. The 53 schizophrenia cases had similar mean LTL as 20 controls, alth...

Three of the most consistently reported and powerful predictors of depression are a recent major life event, a positive family history for depression, and a personal history of past depressive episodes. Little research, however, has evaluated the inter-relations among these predictors in depressed samples. Such information is descriptively valuable and potentially etiologically informative. In ...

BACKGROUND Family history (FH) assessment is useful in identifying and managing patients at increased risk for cancer. This study assessed reported FH quality and associations with physician perceptions. METHODS Primary care physicians practicing in two northeastern U.S. states were surveyed (n = 880; 70% response rate). Outcome measures of FH quality were extent of FH taken and ascertaining ...

INTRODUCTION In this study, we aimed to better understand the genetic transmission of bipolar disorder by examining the family history of patients. METHODS Sixty-three patients with bipolar disorder and their families were included. The final sample comprised 156 bipolar patients and their family members. An inclusion criterion was the presence of bipolar disorder history in the family. The d...

mitochondrial disorders (mids) require biochemical or genetic investigations for being diagnosed. in some cases, however, the diagnosis can be suspected upon the syndromic phenotype or upon clinical presentation and family history, as in the following case. the patient was a 74-year-old male admitted for worsening of pre-existing left-sided ptosis and ophthalmoparesis after a birthday party. th...