Keep moving...immobility is dangerous!

New Delhi: If you are one of those who like to keep your seat belt fastened all the time while you travel, bad idea!

This is what a new study by the World Health Organisation says, because traveling immobile and seated, for four hours or more, could double the risk of developing blood clots in your veins. Worse, the clots can travel to your heart!

Says cardiologist, Dr Dhirendra Singhania, "The condition is known as DVT or Deep Vein Thrombosis. It's when blood clots in veins of the lower limbs. These clots could prove fatal if they reach your lungs as that might lead to heart failure. However, the risk of fatality is very, very low."

Five independent research studies have concluded that one could get affected by DVT while traveling by air and on land, but Dr Singhania says that the risk is heightened for people who take flights because DVTs and pulmonary embolisms do not go away completely after a flight is over, and the risk remains elevated for about four weeks.

Also, the risk increases if you are obese, very tall or very short, use oral contraceptives, or have inherited inherited blood disorders that increase clotting tendency.

While the risk factors are many, all it would take you to prevent DVT is a small walk every now and then while traveling!

(With inputs from Shalini)