Women May Exercise Less Than Men To Yield Same Cardiovascular Benefits, Study Finds

According to a new study, women may yield the same cardiovascular benefits as men with less exercise in a week.

Men vs. Women: Exercise That Yields Same Cardiovascular Benefits

Across the US, heart disease is the leading cause of death for women. The condition kills over 300,000 women each year.

The new study "Sex Differences in Association of Physical Activity With All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality" notes that women just need less than 2.5 hours of moderate to intense aerobic physical activity in a week in order to yield the same survival benefit that men obtain with five hours' worth of physical activity.

The researchers note that the mortality risk of women who regularly engaged in physical activity was 24% lower. In contrast, this figure was 15% for men.

Dr. Martha Gulati, the co-lead author of the study, explains that the study's beauty is that it shows how women can maximize each minute of moderate-to-intense physical activity compared to men.

The authors looked into health data from 1997 to 2019. This date involved 412,413 adults across the US. By the end of the study, there were 39,935 adults who died, with 11,670 of them having cardiovascular deaths.

Among the women who were studied, those who were regularly engaged in aerobic exercise had a 36% reduced risk of cardiovascular death. On the other hand, men had a 14% reduced risk.

The researchers also examined the difference between men and women who regularly engaged in strength training. They observed that, though men attain their peak benefit from doing three muscle-strengthening activity sessions in a week, women see the same benefit levels in just one session a week.

Among the studied men, those who regularly engaged in muscle-strengthening activities had an 11% reduced cardiovascular risk. For women, this reduction amounted to 30%.

Stressing the Importance of Exercise

According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans that the US Department of Health and Human Services developed, adults are recommended to engage in at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderately intense weekly exercise. The guide does not advise different exercise amounts for both men and women.

The researchers note that the nature of the study has an observational design, which means that no causal relationship can be established. They also noted that the information they looked into was self-reported and did not consider household activity variations.

Cardiologist Dr. Steven Nissen from Cleveland Clinic, who did not participate in the study, noted that the findings were intriguing. Dr. Nissen also stressed that the observational study comes with limitations, noting that it requires further confirmation with other data from other populations in other countries.

Nevertheless, the researchers of the new study suggest that physiological differences between the bodies of males and females could account for the divergent results observed. They also note that, on average, men have wider lung airways, proportionately larger hearts, greater capacity for lung diffusion, and larger muscle fibers compared to women.

According to Dr. Nissen, at the end of the day, exercise is still one of the best medicines available, regardless of gender. He notes that everyone should exercise for 300 meters each week.