Venous diseases particularly wide-spread in western industrial nations
Advanced age and overweight are two of the risk factors that can contribute to venous diseases.
Millions of people suffer from venous diseases in Germany alone. Venous diseases are, however, among the most common of clinical pictures seen in physician's practices in other, mainly western, countries. By way of comparison, those people living in developing countries are much more rarely affected. This conclusion was reached by Jennifer Beebe-Dimmer and her colleagues from the Institute of Epidemiology of the University of Michigan/USA (Ann Epidemiol 2005; 15: 175-184). They analysed all the epidemiological studies published since 1942 and determined the prevalence of and risk factors for varicose veins and chronic venous insufficiency.
The estimates, as to how many people suffer from varicose veins, ranged in the studies published between 2 to 56% in men and between 1 to 73% in women. The prevalence of chronic venous insufficiency was somewhat lower and lay at 1 to 17% in men and at 1 to 40% in women. The authors explain these considerable differences among the results as being due to the methods used to gather data, which are often non-standardised: in addition to the various definitions of the diseases analysed, the results were also dependent on the country and respective group of people being investigated. Age, gender and ethnicity in particular affected the determined prevalence of the diseases.
The epidemiologists were also interested in factors, which favour the development of venous diseases. In their eyes, clear risk factors are advanced age, being female, pregnancy, a hereditary predisposition, overweight and occupations, which predominantly involve standing up.
.gif)
