How important is exercise to the well-being of adults with cerebral palsy who use wheelchairs? An article in 'The Times" yesterday, "Eat Wisely - and Fly Safely" about causes of Deep Vein Thrombosis, caused me to wonder.
"The sheer immobility of sitting in a plane (or coach, train or car) for more than four hours slows down the blood flow, and flying in a pressurised cabin causes a potential further problem because some of the fluid component of your blood moves into surrounding tissues (the process which causes our ankles and feet to swell when we fly). This makes our blood thicker and more prone to clotting."
What happens to someone with cerebral palsy who spends all or most of their waking life in a wheelchair - especially if their feet are strapped?
"If you add a meal rich in saturated fat into the mix, the problem may intensify, since saturated fats raise the levels of blood fats after eating which activates a substance called Factor 7, a central component of the blood-clotting mechanism.
“While no specific clinical research has been done to find out if one-off fatty meals in-flight will push you over the edge and trigger DVT,” says the nutrition scientist Sarah Stanner of the British Nutrition Foundation, “in theory eating fatty meals could make a difference.”
So, diet potentially compounds the problem for the wheelchair user too, apparently.
Is there research? How is this filtering through to cities that run public 'healthy living' and sports? programmes?