Von Willebrand Disease : Risk Factors
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A pedigree is a family tree or chart made of symbols and lines that represent a patient's genetic family history. The pedigree is a visual tool for documenting biological relationships in families and the presence of diseases.
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To find out what your family risks are, ask people on both sides of your family. Start with your parents, siblings and children.
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The Write Stuff: Your Family HistoryWhat was your grandmother's maiden name? Where did your ancestors come from?
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If your father or mother has heart disease, that doesn't mean you will automatically develop it, too. It's true that you are more likely to get it than someone who does not have a family history of heart disease, but you can take steps to try to prevent it.
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Although inheriting certain genes might boost your chances of contracting a disease, it's rarely a sure thing. Often, your lifestyle and environment can join with disease-prone genes to make a potential disease a reality.
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Pedigree charts are a visual tool for documenting biological relationships in families and the presence of disorders. Using these charts, a medical professional such as a geneticist or genetic counselor, can analyze the genetic risk in a family for a particular trait or condition by tracking which individuals have the disorder and determining how it is inherited.
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