Leg pain may signal clogged arteries.

• Position: Special Newsletter Edition: Your Health

Pain that causes limping may signal more than advancing years or arthritis--it may be the sign of poor blood supply to the legs caused by hardening or clogging of the arteries in the lower body, warns John P. Cooke, who directs the vascular medicine section at Stanford University Clinic. He points out that there are some important symptoms that help distinguish this generally treatable condition--called intermittent claudication--from other maladies that can cause limping and pain.

"Generally, folks with intermittent claudication feel cramping, fatigue, or tightness when walking. Unlike people with arthritis or some other afflictions of advancing years, people with intermittent claudication usually don't have to sit down or take the weight off their legs to find relief. The discomfort goes away when they stop walking. One real risk of intermittent claudication is that, because it becomes painful to walk, many sufferers stop moving before they notice angina--a tightening in their chest, which is a sign of a heart condition. Therefore, their underlying heart condition may go undiagnosed, so it's important to evaluate patients' cardiac condition before developing a treatment plan."

Diagnosis also is vital, because those afflicted with intermittent claudication have about five times the risk of dying in any given year--more often than not of stroke or heart attack--than the general population of the same age. About two percent of the U.S. population over age 55 suffers from it.

"If the condition is limited to the lower body, a...