So when I was a kid, almost all my friends parents and my Mom had varicose veins. It seemed like it was a right of passage. When you reached “middle aged” it seemed to happen to just about everyone. Now Im middle aged, and my legs are fine. My wife’s legs are fine. My friends who are around the same age all seem fine. So why are varicose veins so much less common these days? Better shoes? Better nutrition?
In: Biology
It’s important to first understand what varicose veins are and to do that we need to delve into a little bit of anatomy and physiology.
Veins are blood vessels that transfer blood back to the heart. Because your blood has to pass through capillaries, tiny blood vessels that distribute blood to tissue, blood pressure begins to drop off in the capillaries as all that pressure begins to disperse. By the time blood returns to veins from the capillaries, there’s almost no blood pressure from the heart pumping. So how does your body return blood upwards against gravity if there’s no pressure? The answer is one-way valves. When your muscles squeeze during normal contractions, it applies a pressure that pushes blood up through these one-way valves but doesn’t let it go back down.
Varicose veins are what happens, most typically in the legs, when these valves become damaged. It’s essentially blood struggling to return to the heart and pooling in veins, causing them to get distended. Soo, what causes the damage? There are a vareity of factors but the big ones are age, obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and pregnancy. Age, as with all things in our body, can take its toll on these valves. Obesity means a greater blood volume, which puts more stress on these valves over time. A sedentary lifestyle usually means these valves aren’t being used as often which allows blood to pool and put pressure on them. Pregnancy can also be a factor in damaging them as pregnant women have a higher blood volume to help support their baby.
Varicose veins are usually caused by a combination of these factors.
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