Hereditary, genetic… or transgenerational habits?

Every change in our environment and habits can nourish or weaken our body. Like this young sprout, our vitality flourishes when our vital relationships are correct 🌱

One of the deepest and most widespread beliefs I encounter in my patients concerns the family history of diseases.
When a doctor asks, “Do you have a family history of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, asthma?”, the patient’s answer almost always carries an implicit interpretation: if a disease appears across generations, it must be genetic.

And by “genetic,” many understand: I was born with a defective gene, a ticking time bomb inside me, and there’s nothing to do but wait for it to go off.

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Consequences of this belief

1. Persistent anxiety
   When a disease has marked the family--heart attacks, strokes, dementia, cancer, repeated hysterectomies--the individual lives with the silent dread that “my turn will come.” They consult regularly, hoping that if the disease appears, it will be diagnosed and managed quickly.
2. Lack of curiosity
   Since the explanation seems already given (“it’s in my genes”), no one asks why these diseases recur in the same lineage. People stop questioning the meaning of this repetition or what, in real life, favors the appearance of these symptoms.
3. Dependence on the doctor
4. Normalization of symptom-focused medicine

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Genetics: what does it really mean?

For a disease to be truly genetic, three precise conditions must be met:

1. The gene involved is identified.
2. The nature of the alteration (mutation, duplication, absence…) is known.
3. There is a test to confirm or refute this alteration.

In everyday clinical practice, such cases are extremely rare:

• Trisomy 21: identified chromosome and possible test
• Huntington’s disease: exact gene identified
• BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations: increased risk of certain breast and ovarian cancers
• Some cardiomyopathies: genes identified

And that’s essentially it. In most general practice offices or hospital departments, truly genetic diseases can be counted on one hand.

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Transgenerational ≠ Hereditary ≠ Genetic

• Transgenerational: what repeats across generations in a family. An observation.
• Hereditary: what is biologically transmitted through reproduction. A biological causality.
• Genetic: what relates to genes. A precise molecular explanation.

What many call “hereditary”--and equate with “genetic”--is often only a transgenerational observation.
Despite extensive research in genetics and epigenetics, without a proven causal gene and confirmatory test, a disease should not be considered genetic or hereditary.

This shortcut did not arise by chance. Around the discovery of DNA and the awarding of the Nobel Prize, there was immense social and scientific pressure to explain everything through genetics.
We were presented as humans programmed like machines, with “ticking bombs” written into our genes.

The price of this narrative:

1. Normalization of permanent medical anxiety
2. Reinforcement of essentially symptom-focused medicine
3. Disappearance of attention to lived life, habits, and above all, vital relationships

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What if it isn’t genetic?

The real question becomes: what repeats, if not genes?

Some concrete examples:

• Certain families show hysterectomies across multiple generations--for fibroids, endometriosis, or other reasons. The medical causes differ, but the surgical act repeats like a red thread.
• In other families, asthma, hypertension, or dementia recur.
• In yet others, early heart attacks, chronic digestive disorders, or severe migraines appear regularly.

These repetitions are not genetic inevitabilities: no gene was provided, no genetic test proposed. These are transgenerational phenomena.

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Attentive medicine: listening to vital relationships

This is precisely where attentive medicine finds its field.
Rather than stopping at the label “transgenerational,” the practitioner sits with the patient--sometimes including multiple family members--and explores:

• What changes preceded the onset of symptoms?
• Which vital relationships (food, air, water, rest, self-expression…) have become incorrect?
• Which habits, conscious or unconscious, keep the body in these incorrect relationships?

Unlike speculative genetic assumptions, we have indisputable evidence:

• We die if we do not eat, drink, breathe, eliminate waste, or regulate our temperature.
• We also need to be loved--first by ourselves, and at least in childhood by another.

The body immediately signals when vital relationships become incorrect:

• Abdominal pain if we eat “wood instead of an apple”
• Cough at the first cigarette

We also have very tangible physiological evidence of our psychosomatic nature:

• Facial flushing when we feel shame
• Salivation at the thought of a lemon
• Sexual thoughts triggering physiological responses in sexual organs

The body does not pretend: it speaks. Provided we listen.

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Conclusion

Until someone shows me the gene, the alteration, and the test, considering a disease genetic is not evidence-based--it’s a belief.
And this is good news.

It restores the essential question: why did the body change at that moment and in that way?

Rather than surrendering to the fear of an imaginary genetic bomb, we can regain curiosity and attention to understand the life we lead, the habits we carry, and the relationships we maintain--with ourselves, our loved ones, and our vital environment--and above all, the why behind these states in our relationships.

This is where attentive medicine opens new paths and can dismantle a powerful myth: transgenerational ≠ genetic.

 https://www.attentivemedicine.org/