Hello and thank you for posting, I'm sorry you are going through this stressful time.

It is difficult to say that anyone is at 'low risk' for cancer as cancer is many different illnesses with many different causes.

What I can tell you is that when cancer is in the family, people can assume that this greatly increases their risk of developing it, but this isn't always true.  Although the genes we inherit may influence our risk, this might not be by very much. No one is risk-free and the risk of cancer increases for all of us as we get older. It might be useful to look at our website which has a section explaining genes and inherited cancer risk at this link.

Cancer is caused by a build-up of changes in our genes and/or the way our genes behave. Changes occur because of mistakes or faults which in most cases of cancer have developed over someone's lifetime and are not inherited. Faulty cancer genes can be passed from one generation to the next, but they are uncommon.

The link of your grandfather  having stomach cancer in his eighties is unlikely to have any effect on your future health, but if you are interested, we have more information about the risks and causes of cancer on our website.

Please do get back to us if you have any more questions or give us a call at 0808 800 4040. We are here from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.

Sarah.