Blood Vessels

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing – especially when that "little bit" just isn't enough to protect you from serious health risks. Consider your arteries, for example. You know you need to keep the ones surrounding your heart in good working order – free from the snags caused by homocysteine, the clogs caused by cholesterol and triglycerides that stick to those snags, and the inflammation caused by C-reactive protein. That's a great basis – one that a lot of devout mainstream medicine followers don't have, thanks to Big Pharma's heavy focus only on cholesterol levels.  
 
But what you don't know about your arteries, particularly the arteries in your legs, might not only surprise you – it might put you at risk for the same complications you're trying to avoid by keeping your heart healthy, not to mention other equally unpleasant situations. 
 
You see, the arteries in your legs are just as prone to clots and clogs as the ones around your heart. It's a condition called peripheral artery disease (PAD), and a recent survey published in the journal Circulation showed that only 25 percent of adults are aware of it, despite the fact that it affects between 10 and 25% of people over the age of 50. 
 
Rather than causing reduced blood flow to the heart, PAD causes less blood to flow to your legs. And the results, like severe leg pain while walking, can impact your ability to lead a normal life. If it goes unchecked long enough, the only option for "treating" PAD is leg amputation. Which is precisely why it's so critical for you to learn about it and to take the necessary precautions now, before it's too late to save your arteries, or your legs. 
 
Your first step is to determine your risk. If you smoke (or used to smoke), have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease, or have suffered a heart attack or stroke, your risk is higher than average. 
 
From there, see if you have any of the most common symptoms of PAD.
These include:

*    Fatigue, tiredness, or pain in your legs, thighs or buttocks when
you walk that goes away when you rest.
*    Foot or toe pain that occurs when you're not walking or on your
feet (especially pain that frequently keeps you up at night).
*    Skin wounds or ulcers on your feet or toes that are slow to heal
(8 to 12 weeks or more).

If any of these conditions apply to you, you should get screened for PAD. Ask your doctor for more information or ask him/her ask to perform an ankle-brachial index test on you. This compares the blood pressure in your ankles with the blood pressure in your arms.