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Clots
More Common in Overweight People
New research suggests the risk of potentially deadly blood
clots from long airline flights is small but rises sharply
in people who are older, overweight or taking birth control
pills.
In one study, blood clots in the lung - the most serious
travel-related kind - occurred more frequently on flights
lasting longer than eight hours.
In that study, 16 cases were detected among international
passengers arriving at Spain's Madrid-Barajas Airport from
1995 to 2000. All of them involved flights longer than six
hours.
The overall lung blood-clot risk was 0.39 cases per one
million passengers, compared with 1.65 per million passengers
on flights longer than eight hours, researchers said.
"The low incidence . . . does not justify social alarm,"
said the researchers, led by Dr. Esteban Perez-Rodriguez
of Madrid's Ramon y Cajal Hospital.
The study was published with two smaller ones on clots
and air travel in Monday's issue of Archives of Internal
Medicine.
The clot problem, sometimes called "economy-class
syndrome," appears to stem from prolonged sitting in
cramped quarters without getting up and walking around.
Clots that form in the legs can travel to the lungs and
cause sudden death.
Another study involved 210 patients with limb and lung
blood clots and 210 healthy people. Clots were twice as
common in patients who had recently travelled and significantly
higher in patients already at risk, including women taking
birth control pills, who were 14 times more likely to develop
blood clots than non-travellers not on the pill, Dr. Ida
Martinelli and colleagues at the University of Milan reported.
In the third study, German researchers found varicose veins
and being overweight were common among travellers with blood
clots. Advanced age is also a risk factor; the average age
of travellers with clots was 66.
On the Net:
Archives of Internal Medicine: archinternmed.com
Article Source: AP
Article Author: N/A
Net Reference 102
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