Whenever I am asked about my family medical history...I have to say, I tend to answer in a vague way with..only reference to my parents. Not much further back. I only know how 2 aunts died out of ..um 10 aunts and uncles paternal and maternal. I have no clue how my 3 grandparents each died. 1 of them died just after a dental surgical procedure. Latter all died in China.

While I don't discount genetics as a factor for certain health predispositions in a family line, I think for me to indicate what my grandparents, aunts, uncles were like medically isn't totally helpful to determine my health disposition, for these reasons:

1) My lifestyle, or my generation's is very different from previous generations. On top of that my diet is quite different (but not as radically different compared to someone eating alot of dairy-based, fatty and meat based diet) from relatives in mainland China over the past 50 years. Diet particularily different between a developing country and a developed country over a span of 50 years.

2) Medical system between China and North America is different..so that could affect treatment/lack of treatment.

As well as access to preventive care information is a factor across generations depending on geography, linguistic comprehension and literacy.

however latter, even if one is more literate and have access to a ton of preventive health care information, it doesn't guarantee better health/self-care. For certain North America, is just screaming example of many people knowing the right info., but not acting much on it.

'Course there are good stories too...like folks here who try take preventive health care measures/lifestyles.