Are fibroids hereditary?
- Created: August 31, 2010
- by: admin
Many women that suffer from fibroids may notice that other female members in their family may share the same issue. Read inside to see why genetics may be a predictor of whether or not a woman is prone to fibroids.
My mother had a complete hysterectomy at 45 because of fibroids. My sister that is 6 years younger than I am recently had a hysterectomy. She only had 1 fibroid but she said that she couldn’t stand the symptoms of her fibroids. Now I have the same problem, is this a hereditary problem?
As far as research has shown, fibroids are not hereditary. They do have a strange genetic pattern, however, in that many fibroids are monoclonal (derived from the same cell). In other words, if a woman has multiple fibroids, sometimes all of those fibroids come from a single cell as if that cell were cloned. This has led some people to hypothesize that a virus is involved in producing the fibroid cells that then grow and replicate like a cancer, but in a controlled, non-invasive fashion. This is not to say that fibroids are cancerous, they are not cancerous. However, it may be possible that if they are to act as a “virus” then people in the same family could be susceptible; not because of genetics, but because of exposure to the same virus, further allowing other family members to also grow fibroids.
At any rate, at this point in time, there is no research that justifies the idea that fibroids are hereditary. There is, however, data that demonstrates the high occurrence of fibroids in the African American race. It is estimated that approximately 40% of African American women suffer with fibroid tumors before menopause, in contrast to less than 20% in their white counterparts.