This article is from the book, Total Health For Women , by Ellen Michaud, Elisabeth Torg, and the Editors of Prevention Magazine Health Books. To send a link and summary of this article to a friend, click here . Experts say that, in the United States, more than two-thirds of all women and half of all men have varicose veins in their legs. So it's as we suspected.
Women are more likely to get varicose veins than men are.
He adds that some estimates make women ten times more likely to develop this painful problem. Female hormones are the major culprits, say phlebologists, doctors who specialize in vein disease, and dermatologists, who treat skin conditions, including swollen veins that appear near the surface of the skin. One reason doctors connect the problem to hormones is that some girls begin to show varicose veins at puberty, confirming theories that the condition is related to changes in the body's estrogen and progesterone levels. Teenagers with varicose veins are rare, however. Most women first develop swollen veins when they're in their twenties or thirties, usually during pregnancy, when female hormone levels are at their highest.