Does it increase my chance or would that be too distant for it to make any difference?
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When we’re talking about something influenced by lots of genes (and not simple dominant/recessive), a good rule of thumb is that risk correlates with how closely related you are:
* Parents and brothers/sisters are 1st degree relatives.
* Grandparents/grandchildren, uncles/aunts, half-siblings, nieces/nephews are 2nd degree.
* Great-grandparents, great-grandchildren, first cousins, and great-uncles/great-aunts are 3rd degree.
So, your grandmother’s sister (great-aunt) is a 3rd-degree relative. That’s just close enough to influence risk on strongly genetic problems, but usually not enough to worry about, especially when no one else in the family has something. For instance, schizophrenia probably has a stronger genetic link than either common type of diabetes, and having an identical twin who suffers from it puts your risk at 50%, but having a great-aunt would increase your lifetime risk from the baseline 1% all the way to… 2%.
Type II diabetes is more strongly genetic than type I, but still has a strong environmental component, and even people with a strong genetic loading who get plenty of exercise and eat healthy can do a lot to rein in that risk.
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