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Comment by Aldipower | Hacker News Reader

"They also looked at his medical history, which was relatively short. He was born in Central America, but he had lived in the US for 16 years."

Interesting constellation of sentences. So, the most important thing in a medical history seems to be where you've been born. Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder? That is not going to be clear here.

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"have you traveled outside the country?" is a pretty common question. Doctors trained and practice in a specific context - an American hospital - may not recognize symptoms of common parasites or illnesses in other places. 16 years is a long time to incubate something but it could also be related to imported food, travelling back home, or a recent arrival of someone else.

your geographical whereabouts are part of your medical history yes, that's important. Far from the most important thing, but definitely important in case of diagnosing weird stuff

Certain groups of people have certain genetic predispositions. Ie when pregnant there is calculation of down syndrome probability, they take your origin into account. We had something like 1:4000 IIRC, my french teacher who comes from Algeria had 1:200 with his wife.

Alcohol tolerance is another (native south americans have lower, as do some asian populations). Over time, env effects also creep up in the genome (ie altitude acclimatization for sherpas).

But could be also societal, level of healthcare, level and types of vaccines received and so on.

> Is Central America or the US better/worse for your health I wonder?

Better in some ways, worse in others. Central America will be better if you're considering asthma and allergies. It will be much worse if you're thinking about parasites.

Since moving from the northeastern U.S. to Honduras all my chronic allergy and asthma problems have disappeared. I think it’s mainly the absence of oak trees, but I probably benefit from other differences in the flora as well.

Or...it could be as simple as his being born in Central America and this taking place in the U.S. means they didn't have access to his earlier health records.

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