Health Blog

(CNN)The average American spends half their day sitting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much of our sitting time takes place at work, where we are glued to our computers as cogs in the post-farming, post-factory economy.

That can have major health impacts. According to the Mayo Clinic, those who sit for eight hours a day with no physical activity have a similar risk of dying as smokers.

The human body is not supposed stay still for that long. ...

Though generally harmless, hair-thin blemishes, known as spider veins, can cause some to want to cover up even in the heat. Treating spider veins is rarely a medical necessity (though some seek treatment to relieve the aching the veins can cause), but for those who want it, spider vein-free skin is just a zap away.

No one knows why some people develop spider veins and others don’t, but genetics, the hormone estrogen and possibly the hormone progesterone are thought to play ...

Varicose (VAR-i-kos) veins are swollen, twisted veins that you can see just under the surface of the skin. These veins usually occur in the legs, but they also can form in other parts of the body.

Varicose veins are a common condition. They usually cause few signs and symptoms. Sometimes varicose veins cause mild to moderate pain, blood clots, skin ulcers (sores), or other problems.
Overview

Veins are blood vessels that carry blood from your body’s tissues to your heart. Your heart ...

Varicose veins are twisted, enlarged veins. Any superficial vein may become varicosed, but the veins most commonly affected are those in your legs. That’s because standing and walking upright increases the pressure in the veins of your lower body.

For many people, varicose veins and spider veins — a common, mild variation of varicose veins — are simply a cosmetic concern. For other people, varicose veins can cause aching pain and discomfort. Sometimes varicose veins lead to more-serious problems.

Treatment may involve ...

About half of the population will one day have a vein problem.

For some, it will involve the thinner, blotchy spider veins that don’t bother some people, but cause itching or burning in others. Still others will be plagued by the more noticeable bulging of varicose veins.

Most varicose veins appear in the legs due to the pressure of body weight, the force of gravity and the task of carrying blood from the bottom of the body back to the heart.

In some ...

Venous insufficiency occurs when the valves in a person’s veins do not work properly. This means that the veins are less able to transport blood back to the heart.

Venous insufficiency is fairly common. According to the Society for Vascular Surgery, it affects up to 40 percent of people in the United States.

It is also usually chronic. This condition causes leg and foot swelling, varicose veins, and aching legs.

In this article, we cover the causes and risk factors for venous insufficiency, ...

(Reuters Health) – Standing above the crowd puts people at greater risk of developing varicose veins, a large genetic study suggests.

Varicose veins are swollen, twisted veins that can be seen just under the surface of the skin, usually in the legs. More than 30 million people in the U.S. have varicose veins. Although the condition is often dismissed as nothing more than a cosmetic nuisance, it can cause moderate pain and has been linked to the more serious side effect ...

(CNN) Varicose veins may be an early warning sign of potentially deadly blood clots, suggests a study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA.

Enlarged and gnarled varicose veins and deep venous thrombosis, a clot that forms in the deep veins of the body, are strongly associated, the Taiwanese researchers found.

Though they looked at the health records of more than 425,000 adults, the researchers say that even more work is needed to understand whether this relationship is one in which varicose ...

(CNN) — In what researchers are calling “the largest genetic study ever performed” on varicose vein disease, a Stanford University School of Medicine study found a person’s height to be a significant risk factor for developing varicose veins.

“We not only found an association between height and varicose veins, but the genetic studies we did showed a causal link,” said cardiologist and study author Dr. Nicholas Leeper, an associate professor of surgery and cardiovascular medicine at Stanford. “That suggests that the ...

(CNN) — Varicose veins may be an early warning sign of potentially deadly blood clots, suggests a study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA.

Enlarged and gnarled varicose veins and deep venous thrombosis, a clot that forms in the deep veins of the body, are strongly associated, the Taiwanese researchers found.

Though they looked at the health records of more than 425,000 adults, the researchers say that even more work is needed to understand whether this relationship is one in which varicose ...