CHECK OUT DAD'S FAMILY TREE

 

Linda and her cousin Elsie

On a so-so Borrego flower year

 

I guess this should have been obvious, but it certainly wasn’t obvious to me.  Men as well as women, can pass on an elevated risk of ovarian cancer.  They can’t get it, of course, but they can pass it on to their daughters.  Thus, if you are female and your PATERNAL grandmother had ovarian cancer, you need to be especially careful*.  As you all certainly know, males have one X and one Y chromosome, whereas females carry two X’s.  When a zygote forms. Mom contributes one chromosome (inevitably an X), and Dad provides another – and half the time it will be an X, too.  If you get two Xs you will be a girl, and if Dad inherited a mutated X from his mom, you will have it also. Bummer!

It turns out that the mutated X also makes a male more susceptible to prostate cancer.  Another bummer! There ought to be a law against this sort of thing.

http://www.newser.com/story/255480/womens-risk-for-ovarian-cancer-may-come-from-dad.html

*Obviously, if your maternal grandmother had ovarian cancer you should be equally cautious, or even more so.