What To Eat & Avoid When You Have Popliteal Artery Entrapment Syndrome?

In the general population, popliteal artery entrapment syndrome (PAES) has an estimated prevalence of 0.16%. Less than 3% of all people are born with this anatomical defect that progresses into PAES. Bilateral presentation of PAES is found in approximately 25% of cases.⁽¹⁾

Despite technical advances in arterial repair, trauma to the popliteal artery continues to be associated with a relatively high amputation rate in most civilian and military experiences.⁽²⁾

Diagnostic delay is common because this problem usually occurs in young, athletic patients, who lack the vascular conditions that would predispose them to atherosclerosis and limit their normal social and professional activities in the presence of even mild symptoms.⁽²⁾

While talking about the eating habits in popliteal artery entrapment syndrome, firstly its causative mechanism must be clearly understood. In most of the cases of this condition, the person suffering is usually military personnel or an athletic with a very aggressive workout regime. It causes the muscles of the respective body parts to hypertrophy to cope with increased demand from the body. In this process, there is compression of the popliteal artery occurring at some point in its path by this hypertrophied gastrocnemius muscle which is causing all the problems.⁽³⁾

Since the person is a healthy male without any previous cardiovascular risk factor for the stenosis of the arterial system and is already taking a healthy diet there is not much of a concern on the front of dietary changes. A healthy balanced diet has to be continued with all the necessary nutrients in it. Water intake has to be increased to maintain the blood volume in the vessels which will help to smoothly slow the blood in them. Also, it will try to reduce the viscosity generated at the site of stenosis and it will reduce the chances of formation of a clot which can ultimately lead to the prevention of popliteal artery entrapment syndrome.

Food items like milk, jaggery, fruits like pomegranate, watermelon, green leafy vegetables such as spinach, etc. which not only helps in maintaining the water balance of the body but also helps to reduce the anemia by helping in hemoglobin formation are very helpful in the condition of popliteal artery entrapment syndrome. It is because when there is a stenotic artery there is a reduced blood supply to the distal end of the arterial territory leading to reduced oxygen supply which can be precipitated even more if the patient is suffering from anemia also, so by preventing the chances of anemia and keeping the hemoglobin content high, we can reduce the chances of limb destruction from the ischemia.

Usage of salt should be minimized to control the blood pressure which can also be harmful by acting as a predisposing factor for cardiovascular events. Oily food items rich in fats especially in saturated fats should be avoided as much as possible because they are the main risk factors for the development of atherosclerotic changes in the cardiovascular system and predispose for more complications in the arterial stenosis conditions like popliteal artery entrapment syndrome even though these are not biased by such changes beforehand. Smoking also has a very bad effect on the health of arteries and may increase the predisposition and must be avoided.

Conclusion

According to various studies done on the condition of popliteal artery entrapment syndrome, it is found in most of the healthy young males specially belonging to military so there is not much of a problem with their dietary habits and also there is lack of cardiovascular risk factors in almost all such cases, hence there is not much of a need to tinker with the dietary pattern already going on.

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What To Eat & Avoid When You Have Popliteal Artery Entrapment Syndrome?