If you are a woman, chances are you are going to have more wrinkles around the mouth as you age than a man would.

According to a study published in the November-December issue of the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, researchers from the Netherlands said that biology may be the reason women are more likely to develop perioral wrinkles which form around the mouth and lips.

Health website WebMD reported the study revealed that women's skin tissues around the mouth contain fewer sweat and sebaceous glands compared to men. This could influence the natural filling of the skin.

Better blood circulation is supposed to slow wrinkle development, but women have fewer blood vessels in the skin tissues than men.

In addition, women have muscle fibres surrounding the lips and connected to the middle layer of skin that are closer to one another, causing an inward pull that results in deeper wrinkles.

'The aim of this study is to obtain new insight into the perception that women wrinkle earlier and more severely than men,' study researcher Emma Paes from the University Medical Centre in Utrecht, Netherlands, said in a news release.

'If we understood the reasons for differences in wrinkling between women and men, then we might be able to develop better strategies for the treatment of perioral wrinkles.'

The conclusion was drawn after researchers studied the upper lip region in both male and female cadavers for the amount and depth of perioral wrinkling.

Up till now, the researchers noted that there is still a lack of an effective treatment for perioral wrinkling.

'We think it's important to consider the reasons why a particular treatment may or may not be effective,' said Dr Paes.

'Sometimes one has to go back to the basics instead of just moving forward. In the end, having more basic knowledge about a problem can speed up the process of finding the right solution.'

This article was first published in Mind Your Body, The Straits Times.