As I was giving my family medical history to a new doctor, I got to wondering. Everyone–parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents–smoked for 30 years or more. Everyone died of (or currently has) heart disease or a cancer linked to smoking.
Now here comes my generation (I’m 55), who never smoked but grew up in homes full of second-hand smoke. My kids have never and will never smoke and their grandparents did not smoke around them.
How relevant is my family history to what’s going on with me today? How relevant will that history be to my children? How much did the smoking distort the presentation of my family’s genetic tendencies and weaknesses? I’m curious, wondering what new things we’ll get sick from that no one else lived long enough to get. Of course, there’s the issue of the various ways we’ve polluted our planet and how those modern exposures impinge on our health. But right now, I’m just wondering about smoking.
Those are good questions for you to ask your current MD.
We had no smoke in our household growing up and my folks are 88 and 93, so I will probably have a long life. Nonetheless I have a chronic lung condition that is often found in smokers that none of my MDs can figure out why I have. (I’ve even had a blood test multiple times and ruled out the genetic form of this lung condition.) Fortunately it hadn’t significantly worsened since it was diagnosed nearly 2 decades ago. My kids were given pretty thorough work ups and do NOT have my lung issues.
H is healthier than his parents were and healthier than his sister who died 6 years ago. We are doing what we can to keep him and me healthy and active as we have much more we want to see and do in this world.
My guess is your exposure to secondhand smoke is very relevant. In fact, I’d go so far to clarify that you weren’t just “exposed” to secondhand smoke, you were immersed in it.
My sister’s husband (my BIL) had a grandfather that smoked. The smoking grandfather died of heart disease, but the more horrible tragedy is that his smoking killed virtually all his loved ones. His wife (my BIL’s grandmother) who never smoked died of lung cancer. His two sons who never smoked also died of lung cancer.
I don’t know if the science has yet advanced to the point where we know which gene mutations or tendencies are activated/deactivated by smoking, but the smoking - lung cancer link is well established and something people who have had long term exposure to secondhand smoke should be aware of.
It’s still important. Yes, many of the things of your parents and grandparents were likely related to smoking but you never know.
I was exposed to secondhand smoke until about middle school. I grew up with breathing problems- chronic pneumonia, childhood asthma, etc. Was it genetic? Was it environmental? Don’t know.
My dad, who almost never drinks, had liver problems usually associated with drinking. He’s also had blood issues that are usually related to smoking. Turns out 2 of his brothers do too and none of them has ever been a smoker.
My mom has Graves Disease which is known to be triggered by smoking. My roommate was just diagnosed with it and has smoked 1 in cigarette in her life.
On the other hand, I have RA and lupus. RA is known to be causally related to smoking- which I’ve never done. My kids will never be exposed to secondhand smoke on any kind of regular basis. Maybe they’ll be spared the autoimmune diseases of their mom and grandma.
My parents were both two-pack-a-day smokers.(In fact, one of my regular chores was to go to the corner store to buy “two Winston Kings and two Old Gold filters”.) I suffered from upper respiratory ailments throughout childhood, missing tons of school days and once landing in the hospital in an oxygen tent for two weeks with pneumonia. And not once did any doctor make the connection to secondhand smoke. It just wasn’t on their radar. Amazing. Flash forward to the present, no doctor has ever specifically inquired about my childhood exposure to smoking. But when asked about how my parents died, I always add, “But he/she was a heavy smoker.”
Smoking in the home is linked to the development of childhood asthma as well as respiratory infections. People diagnosed with asthma or Chronic Onstructive Pulmonary Disease or liver disease are urged to get a free blood test for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (A1AD) which can be manifested as lung and/or unexplained liver problems. It is caused by an identifiable gene and can greatly benefit from prompt ID and proper treatment.
I don’t have any answers to your questions, OP, but I share your family history. I grew up in NC, at a time when everyone smoked; I used to say that when you were born in NC in the “olden days,” you were given a free carton of cigarettes in the delivery room.
Anyway, my mother smoked heavily her entire life. None of her children had any kind of respiratory problems, allergies, or asthma, but I think that was just dumb luck. I sometimes think about how I must have smelled like second-hand cigarette smoke for my entire childhood, and it makes me sad.
My parents smoked heavily until I was about 9. I have never smoked. From 18 - 24, I lived with a man who smoked and whose mother was such a heavy smoker that she tried to have cigs sneaked in to her in the hospital where she was having open heart surgery. This was in the 1980’s, when doctors still smoked in the hallways. I have never had lung problems, other than a couple of bouts of bronchitis. I do have RA, diagnosed at 19 and never connected it with my parents’ smoking @romanigypsyeyes .
My H’s parents both smoked as well. I don’t know when his mom stopped but his dad only quit when he had a massive heart attack while being evaluated by a government doctor for SSD. He died 3 years later. H has asthma, but it’s under control.
Smoking isn’t allowed in our home. For years, a wheelchair bound cousin of H’s lived with us. We didn’t even allow him to smoke in the house even though the only way to do it for awhile was to hike himself out on to the side steps on his bottom because the chair didn’t fit and we wouldn’t carry it out for him. He finally quit.
None of my children smokes. Oldest son’s gf did for awhile but has quit. I have only one friend, a guy at work, who smokes and he pays 30% higher insurance premiums for the privilege.
Our kids know that H’s’ dad died of issues related to smoking and drinking. My parents quit smoking 40 years before they died.
To answer the OP, I do mention the smoking to my doctors and to my kids’ doctors, I spoke about H’s dad.
I am glad that @himom mentioned Alpha 1. It has affected my family as well. It is genetic and smoking or 2nd hand smoke makes it worse. It affects both the lungs and the liver.
My parents were also 2 pack a day smokers until my dad had his first massive heart attack at the age of 45; I had just turned 18. When I think about all the times my brother and I were in the closed up car while they smoked one cigarette after another, it makes me sick. I do have a mild issues of seasonal bronchial asthma, but no idea if their smoking was the cause.
Neither of my kids have ever smoked, nor do any of their friends; the same for my husband, myself and our friends. My mother, the reformed smoker, gets so angry when we are out and a smoker walks by; she just goes nuts!!
OP, your family history is relevant but the fact is you can’t change it. Since your risks are elevated from prolonged exposure, you should be monitoring lots of the other factors that you can affect/potentially control at this point - things like your diet, weight, diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.
Not to pick on you, but what lots of people don’t realize is the harm done to them from many years of a salty/fatty/fried diet, carrying extra weight for many years, and/or family recreational habits like alcoholism, or a learned lack of regular exercise, or poor emotional responses to depression, etc. Because its easier to blame others (who are no longer here) for part of our health status, instead of taking positive action ourselves to do what we can.
Do the best you can now - know your numbers, get regular checkups, and live a healthy lifestyle.
And full disclosure, I am not in the best of health and have not been for years. I admit to be, as my DD says, “the proverbial pot throwing shade at the kettle”. Which she then had to explain to me.
All the posters at the hospitals say 10 years after quitting your risk of heart disease and cancer from smoking are back to the levels of non-smokers. So if you have been out of the house for 10 years you have other things that affect your health a whole lot more than your parents’ bad habits.
I don’t have any answers either but here’s an article that I read a while ago that I thought was interesting (and sort of tangentially related to your question).
I believe I read that article about the same time that I found out my home state has one of the highest percentages of anxiety and other mental illnesses. My home state is in Tornado Alley. Storm anxiety is a real thing - I knew lots of people that had it, some severely. The sound of sirens going off in the middle of the night and getting jerked out of bed (as a child) to run down the street in the wind, thunder, and driving rain to the nearest storm shelter can do that.
Anyway, I wondered if there was some connection between my state’s scary weather and high levels of anxiety - even generations after technology has made storms easier to predict and prepare for.
The article does make the point that, whatever the stressor is that may alter DNA, a healthy lifestyle is the best way to reverse that process.
I remember sitting in our hallway with my parents while tornado sirens went off. At the time, I wasn’t afraid because my Dad was telling us funny stories by candlelight. The next day, I learned a tornado had come through our neighborhood. Damage was spotty, really strange. A couple of our neighbors’ homes were severely damaged. That freaked me out, and I had weather anxiety for many many years afterwards.
It’s nice to know that ours is the last generation in which lots of people will have lots of secondhand smoke exposure in their youth.
But there’s nothing we can do about our past exposure now. All we can do is follow the standard health guidance – eat a healthy diet, include some physical activity in your life, work on weight control if you need to, don’t smoke yourself, don’t overindulge in alcohol, get your health screenings and immunizations, follow your doctor’s instructions on how to manage chronic problems like high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels. All that boring stuff.
My Dad is 81. He has smoked since he was 14, at his peak 4 packs a day. He doesn’t have cancer or heart disease, and no one in his entire family - 7 siblings, down to their great-grandkids in some cases, and back as far and as wide as we can go, has ever had any kind of cancer, ever.
My husbands parents didn’t smoke. His dad died of stomach cancer at 52, his Mom of breast cancer at 72, his grandma of bladder cancer (but she was 95)…
Genetics definitely play a role, but the smoking alone didn’t artificially distort your family medical history. Yes, you had more cancers, but you also apparently have the genetic makeup that may not protect you from cancer, or may make you more sensitive or vulnerable to exposure to carcinogens.
“It’s nice to know that ours is the last generation in which lots of people will have lots of secondhand smoke exposure in their youth.”
Yes, it helps to not have TV shows that glamorize smoking anymore. A few years ago, my girls were into watching old classic TV shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanne, etc. We’d buy them DVD sets for their BDays and Christmas. When we bought them I Love Lucy, I was surprised that I didn’t remember how much smoking went on in that series. I also remember Johnny Carson smoking (and Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. …). No wonder most of the adults in my family and their friends smoked - it was considered sophisticated.
I have a vivid memory of a big holiday meal with the extended family when I was a child. After an entire day of all the adults smoking, my cousins and I could see the haze of smoke concentrated near the ceiling and extending down towards the floor. We all crawled through the living room to avoid breathing the poisoned air!
My mother stopped smoking when I was about 17 (after her father died of lung cancer). After that, she hated to smell smoke on others and said she was so sad to think that she smelled like that throughout my childhood.
I hadn’t thought to point out my second-hand smoke exposure to my doctor; will do, next time. Thanks for the info about Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (A1AD). I hadn’t heard of that before. Over the past 6 years, I’ve been eating healthily, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight–doing all the things that are within my power to control. So, when the doctor is looking for clues in my family history, I just wonder how much of that history is genes and how much is smoking.
Lately I’ve been reading about epigenetics and gut microbes and stress and micro-plastics and how trees communicate with each other underground . . . so much exciting science going on. I find myself wondering a lot
