Vein

DVT – Deep Vein Thrombosis is a blood clot occurring in the legs caused by the slow-down in circulation. Mostly associated with passengers on long air flights, the condition is caused when people sit still for hours at a time. Sometimes compressional bandages work by applying a pressure to the leg, particularly around the ankle. This pressure encourages blood to flow from the veins at the surface of the skin to the veins in the core of the leg, speeding its movement and reducing the chances of it stagnating anywhere. This, in turn, reduces the chances of blood clots developing.

Flight socks are currently the easiest way to get this problem under control it you have to sit for extended periods of time. They look terrible, make your feet sweat and give you a static shock when you put them on. But from now on everybody will be sporting a pair on their summer holidays.

Research has revealed that wearing flight socks can reduce by 90% the risk of developing deep vein thrombosis, DVT, a potentially fatal condition that affects thousands of people every year.

In a review of research published today, scientists said that the socks, which gently compress the leg from the knee down, encourage blood to flow properly in the legs and prevent it from clotting.

“Airline passengers similar to those in the trials in this review can expect a substantial reduction in their risk of a symptom less DVT if they wear compression stockings,” wrote the scientists in the Cochrane Library journal. “Wearing stockings might reduce the incidence of this outcome from a few tens per thousand passengers, to two or three per thousand.