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Back in Circulation - care of, and possible dangers from, varicose veins

Vegetarian Times July, 1999 by Ellen Cavalli

If ugly veins make you hide your great legs, here's help

Skirts, shorts, capris, culottes--women have lots of fashion options for showing off their legs. Yet thanks to biology, women are four times more likely than men to suffer from spider or varicose veins, conditions that mar smooth leg skin. If you're one of the 80 million Americans with varicosities, you'll be happy to hear that there are natural approaches to treating these ropy, bulging or bruised-looking veins caused by improper blood circulation.

The problems associated with varicose veins can go beyond appearance and discomfort. If left untreated, severe varicosity can lead to eczema, ulceration of the lower leg, pulmonary embolism (where a blood clot travels up to the lungs), heart attack or stroke. For severe cases, doctors may recommend surgery to remove the distended veins, but for milder varicose and spider veins, you can follow your own regimen of exercise, good nutrition and herbs. These natural treatments won't completely eliminate the problem, but they can diminish the discomfort and visible evidence.

THE WEAKER VESSELS

There are two types of circulatory vessels in the body: arteries, which channel blood from the heart to the extremities; and veins, which bring blood from the extremities back to the heart. If veins can't move the blood efficiently or the one-way valves that prevent the blood from backwashing fail to close properly, blood collects in the legs and the veins enlarge. Women's vessel walls are naturally more delicate than men's, and therefore are more susceptible to developing full-blown varicosity.

These enlarged veins show up as either spider or varicose veins. Spider veins are red, blue or purple broken capillaries on the surface of the skin. They're not painful, but they can be unattractive, especially on pale skin. Varicose veins are large, thick veins that are deeper beneath the skin, most common in the legs but sometimes occur in the arms or genital area. In the legs, varicose veins can cause feelings of fatigue, aching, burning, throbbing, itching, cramping and restlessness.

Your strategy in battling varicosity naturally is twofold: improving the circulation and strengthening the vein walls so that they stop swelling, leaking and rupturing. The first and simplest measure is counteracting gravity. Standing or sitting all day makes it harder for blood to move up from the legs and back to the heart, since your muscles are static. So when you're at home, rest with your legs higher than your head for 10 minutes every day. This way, you're allowing gravity to help return blood to the heart.

Regular walking and gentle stretching exercises strengthen the muscles around the veins and get the blood circulating more quickly, lessening the pain and discomfort. David Hoffmann, M.N.I.N.H., a Northern California herbalist and author of The Herbal Handbook: A User's Guide to Medical Herbalism (Healing Arts Press, 1998), argues for exercise over compression stockings, a commonly recommended palliative. "Stockings help in the short term, in that you're replacing the muscle tone with support from hosiery and relieving the symptoms," he says. "Long-term that reinforces the loss of the muscle's own tone."

But choose your exercise care. fully. Jogging and other higher-impact exercises (like step aerobics) put too much pressure on the already overtaxed leg veins. Swimming and bicycling are good alternatives.

C FOR YOURSELF

Exercise will help get blood moving and is an asset in weight control (since obesity increases pressure in the veins), but fitness alone isn't enough to solve the problem. Nutrition is also key.

Constipation contributes to veins' distention; hemorrhoids are actually just another form of varicosity. Eating foods high in fiber is important to prevent repeated straining that is responsible for increased pressure in the veins.

To strengthen the veins themselves, your first choice of nutrients should be vitamin C because it is critical to the body's production of collagen, which is the fibrous protein that builds and repairs blood vessels and other tissues. Blade, a Santa Fe-based Wise Woman herbalist, believes that fresh, whole sources of the vitamin are the best. Citrus fruits with thick skins like oranges and grapefruits and fresh-picked leafy greens such as spinach, dandelion or violet leaves are the best sources.

If you'd rather take a supplement, opt for one that comes combined with bioflavonoids, which improve the permeability and integrity of capillary walls. Bioflavonoids (also known as vitamin P) help the body absorb vitamin C and include such phytochemicals as citrin, hesperidin, rutin, proanthocyanidins and anthocyanidins. Good food sources of bioflavonoids are apricots, green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, buckwheat, tea and the white skin and membranes of citrus fruit. Shari Lieberman, Ph.D., a clinical nutritionist in New York City, suggests eating dark-colored fruits and berries, which contain anthocyanidins.

In supplement form, bioflavonoids are usually sold as 500-mg. capsules, standardized to 50 mg. each of rutin and hesperidin. Recommended dosage is from 100 mg. to 600 mg. daily; keep a 1:5 ratio of bioflavonoids to vitamin C (e.g., 100 mg. bioflavonoids to 500 mg. vitamin C) for optimal absorption of vitamin C. Recommended daily intake of vitamin C is 500 mg. to 3,000 mg.

VEIN EFFORTS

A number of herbs strengthen vein walls and improve circulation to diminish existing varicose veins and stop new ones from forming. The top recommendation is horse chestnut seed (Aesculus hippocastanum), whose principal constituent is escin. Recommended dosage is 50 mg. escin daily. Horse chestnut is the active ingredient in Pharmaton's Venastat, a dietary supplement marketed "for leg health."

If you want to make your own tonic, Hoffmann recommends equal parts of tinctures of horse chestnut seed, hawthorn (Crataegi foliam), prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum; a blood stimulant), ginkgo biloba (also a blood stimulant that reduces the cosmetic discoloration of veins) and yarrow (Achillea millefolium), an antispasmodic that eases cramps. He suggests taking one teaspoon of this mix three times a day while pain and discomfort persist.

Other herbs that can help alleviate varicosity are butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus) and gotu kola (Centella asiatica). Butcher's broom's active constituents are ruscogenins, compounds that act as anti-inflammatory and vasoconstrictor (vein-tightening) agents. Suggested dosage is 100 mg., standardized to 9 percent to 11 percent ruscogenin, three times daily. Herbalists usually combine butcher's-broom extract with hesperidin and vitamin C. Gotu kola's active compounds strengthen the connective tissue between veins. Recommended daily dosage is an extract that provides 30 to 60 mg. of its three active acids.

Bioflavonoid-rich herbs also offer relief. Hawthorn leaf with flowers is high in rutin and proanthocyanidins. Standard dosage is 160 to 900 mg. liquid extract daily. (People on digitalis should not use hawthorn, however.) Grape seed and pine bark extracts (sold by various companies under the brand name Pycnogenol) also contain proanthocyanidins. Dosage is 150 to 300 mg. daily.

Herbs to avoid include aloe vera products and yellow and white sweet clover infusions, says Blade, as they draw blood to the lower part of the body and increase the congestion in the veins.

TOPICAL TOPICS

Vitamin K creams, which contain phytonadione, a vegetarian source of vitamin K derived from leafy green vegetables, claim to diminish spider veins by penetrating the skin to strengthen capillaries. But since the circulatory system runs throughout the entire body, systemic therapies for vein problems work best. You will get better results obtaining your vitamin K by eating actual vegetables than by rubbing a cream made from them just on the local area.

Varicose veins can be tenacious, but by sticking to a regimen that includes regular exercise, good nutrition and the right vitamins and herbs, you could find yourself eager to slip into something short and revealing in a matter of months.

Ellen Cavalli, a Santa Fe-based freelance writer, just completed an apprenticeship in herbalism.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Sabot Publishing
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