Heart disease runs in my family as well...on my mom's side, until my grandfather's generation, not one man lived past the age of 65. Every single one died of a massive heart attack. My great-uncle had triple bypass surgery at age 51 and his two brothers went "Oh" and cracked down on their cholesterol.

The irony is that my grandfather's heart is now the healthiest part of him - he had prostate cancer 5 years ago, and then this spring some rare form of cancer that involved a 25-pound tumor in his belly. He's 64. He survived the surgery (four months ago), the first big step, but he's still only 140 pounds (he's 6'1") and the prognosis is about 4 years left for him even if he does regain some strength.

Anyway, at this point the heart disease is controllable, but that generation on my mom's side is full of people who've had cancer and if it IS genetic, then things don't look so good for us.

Modern medicine...we just live too long, our bodies start breaking down....