How to Prevent Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)
PAD is caused when the arteries supplying blood to the legs become narrow due to age, obesity, or smoking. The narrowing reduces oxygen supply to your lower limbs and causes pain in your thighs, feet, ankles, and toes. It can also cause other symptoms, such as swelling, coldness, and numbness of your foot.
Prevention starts with lifestyle changes, particularly weight loss and physical exercise.
- Start walking every day. This is an easy way to keep active. Walking for 30 minutes three times per week helps improve your circulation, as well as strengthen your heart and lungs.
- Keep your cholesterol and blood pressure under control. In addition, you can lower your cholesterol and blood pressure. When your cholesterol is out of control, plaques will form in your arteries and reduce the blood flow. Blood pressure problems will also damage your arteries and impair blood circulation gradually.
- Treat your metabolic or cardiovascular baseline problems. If you are overweight or obese, then losing weight will help reduce your risk of PAD. If you have diabetes, controlling your sugar will reduce the burden of the disease on your circulation. Talk with your doctor about starting a weight-loss program and keeping your blood sugar levels under control.
- Stop smoking: Cigarette smoke has plenty of components that impair your blood flow. They are not only at work in your lungs. They travel all around the body through blood circulation and destroy the small arteries that carry oxygen and nutrients to the cells. So, if you smoke, it is the right moment to stop.
- Exercise your legs: Exercise is an excellent tool in almost every way. In this case, it will help you increase the blood flow and stimulate chemicals that open up the arteries and veins in your legs to reduce the risk of PAD.
- Treat your blood circulation problems: There are two main ways to treat PAD. They are medication and surgery. Medication includes drugs to open up the blocked vessels. Surgery involves inserting a stent into the narrowed vessel. This will allow more blood flow but may require further treatments later on. Talk to your doctor if you were diagnosed with PAD to know your options.