The first sign that anything is wrong may be a pain in the calf when you hurry to catch the train.

The pain gets worse until you stop to rest. It tends to come back with the same amount of exertion. Slowly, you find the pain comes more easily with shorter distances.

This is intermittent claudication, the name derived from the limp of the Roman Emperor Claudius.

Atheroma is the common type of arteriosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. Plaques of fatty material build up on the inner lining of the artery, much the same as rust builds up and blocks a water pipe.

This is the same process which occurs in the coronary arteries of the heart and can lead to angina or a heart attack.

When atheroma blocks the cerebral or brain arteries, a stroke can result.

In peripheral vascular disease, the arteries to the limbs, usually the legs, are affected. The narrowing or eventual blockage may involve the whole length of the artery but, more commonly, it is patchy and only segments are affected.

Atheroma becomes more common with increasing age but has been noted in the arteries of young men who have died as a result of accident and who were regarded as being in good health.

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