Living Well Frank Dent even had trouble walking to the mailbox...
That's when he finally knew it was time to see a doctor.
The 49-year-old North Carolinian's legs hurt so badly that he couldn't walk for more than three minutes. His primary-care doctor diagnosed him with atherosclerosis, or clogged arteries.
But it took 15 years – and treatment for a heart attack – for the real diagnosis.
It's a condition afflicting roughly 10 million Americans aged 40 and older...
Along with heart attack, it can lead to stroke, gangrene, limb amputation, and erectile dysfunction...
And it can't be cured...
Frank had what's called peripheral artery disease ("PAD").
The typical culprit behind PAD is plaque buildup and narrowing of the arteries. So blood has trouble reaching various parts of your body.
Since they're the farthest from your ticker, the lower extremities tend to be most affected. For instance, blood has to fight gravity to return to your heart, where it goes to your lungs to get oxygenated, before having to get pumped all the way to your toes.
As a result, the classic symptom of PAD is having pain in your legs, hips, or butt that worsens when you're physically active but improves when you're resting. Specifically, poor blood flow to the muscles can result in cramping, or intermittent claudication. So it's all too easy to think that it's just some arthritis flaring up when, in reality, it's PAD.
But the nasty part about PAD is just how insidious it can be...
PAD can be asymptomatic, where you have the clogging without the symptoms. But as the disease worsens, you can even get pain, weakness, heaviness, cramping, tingling, and/or numbness in your legs, hips, or butt even at rest. Other warning signs include:
- Skin changes like increased hair loss or shininess
- Nail changes like slow growth, thickening, or increased brittleness
- One foot or leg feels colder than the other
- Problems with healing wounds of the legs, feet, or toes
- Abnormal foot or toe color (like pale, black, bluish, or darkening)
You're more likely to develop PAD if...
- You're aged 65 and older
- You have family members with PAD or cardiovascular disease
- You're hypertensive (have high blood pressure)
- You have high cholesterol
- You're diabetic
- You have chronic kidney disease
- You're a smoker or are exposed to secondhand smoke
A doctor specializing in vascular medicine or cardiology typically diagnoses or treats PAD. Using a special device, he or she will likely check the difference between the blood pressure in your arms and legs in what's called an ankle-brachial index. Imaging like CT or MRI scans can also help diagnose and pinpoint areas affected by PAD.
As for managing symptoms and treatments, there are drugs like blood thinners and vasodilators (to widen the blood vessels) that your doctor may prescribe. In more serious cases, surgery (both minimally invasive and major) is another option.
Regardless of the severity, you wield the power to manage your symptoms by making some tweaks to your lifestyle to keep your blood vessels healthy...
Back to Frank's story, he had been doing everything wrong by the book – like smoking for decades, not exercising, and overindulging in red meat and fried foods.
While he had to get another surgery to treat his severe PAD (by attaching a piece of a blood vessel in the artery in his thigh to reroute blood flow around a blockage), Frank has found relief from his leg pain with some lifestyle changes (including quitting cigarettes). He's now able to walk 4 miles a day and enjoys playing golf and pickleball.
He also changed his diet for the better by eating the same way I do...
Longtime readers know that I'm a big fan of the Mediterranean diet. I eat whole foods – mainly vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. I use olive oil for cooking and topping my dishes.
And I also love eating fish...
Fish is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. And over the past few decades, PAD studies have shown that omega-3s can protect you from cardiovascular disease by lowering blood pressure, increasing production of nitric oxide (a chemical important for relaxing the blood vessels), and decreasing production of inflammatory molecules (especially within the walls of the blood vessels).
I eat about three servings (each about the size of a deck of cards or the palm of my hand) of fish every week... specifically, varieties low in mercury like salmon, canned light tuna, Atlantic mackerel, herring, cod, and sardines.
What are your favorite ways to eat fish? Share them with us at [email protected]. For more of my favorite ways to boost your health (and wealth), look no further than Retirement Millionaire. You can check it out risk-free for 30 days right here.
What We're Reading...
- Something different: How a Harvard chapel renovation unearthed human remains.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
November 21, 2024