Exercise May Benefit Women’s Hearts More Than Men’s

Do some people benefit more from exercise than others? A study published on October 27 in Nature Cardiovascular Research reveals that women may have an advantage over men when it comes to heart health.

Chinese researchers analyzed data from 85,000 people without heart disease registered in the UK Biobank, a dataset that tracked participants’ physical activity levels using accelerometers and recorded cardiac events and deaths over an average of seven years.

Women who met exercise guidelines from the World Health Organization and the American Heart Association (175 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous activity) had a 22% lower risk of cardiac events compared to those who did not meet the guidelines, while men had a 17% lower risk.

Further analysis showed that women were able to reduce their heart risk by exercising less than men. To reduce their risk by 30%, men had to exercise 530 minutes per week, while women only had to be physically active 250 minutes per week, or about half as long.

Learn more: Why you should never shower while wearing contact lenses

“We are quite surprised that women obtained cardiovascular benefits comparable to men with only about half” the physical activity, says Jiajin Chen, a researcher at the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases at Xiamen University Cardiovascular Hospital, who led the study. Additionally, women who did the recommended amount of exercise “experienced a striking three-fold reduction in mortality risk compared to men.”

Dr. Emily Lau, director of women’s heart health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Massachusetts General Heart and Vascular Institute, wrote a commentary on the findings and their implications. “Women seem to have an advantage when it comes to physical activity,” she says. “Yet we see time and time again that women are less physically active and less likely to meet recommended physical activity goals. This presents an opportunity for the medical community to think about how we can tailor our recommendations for women. Because what we’re doing now isn’t really working.”

Learn more: Why strength training is the best anti-aging

The findings provide a starting point for additional studies to better understand why women might benefit more from exercise than men, even at lower amounts. Although the study did not explore potential explanations for these findings, Chen says scientists have some theories. First, women have higher estrogen levels than men, and before menopause, estrogen may protect cardiovascular health, which may partly explain why women tend to develop cardiac events later than men. Trials also show that men who take estrogen supplements may improve their coronary heart disease because they help break down lipids during exercise. There are also differences in muscle composition between men and women as well as muscle metabolism.

Chen did not analyze whether menopause, after which estrogen levels drop in women, led to differences in the benefits of exercise in women. However, the women in the study were generally older – likely post-menopause – with an average age of almost 62 years. The number of premenopausal women was too small to provide a reliable comparison.

Based on these results, “our findings provide valuable evidence for gender-specific prevention of coronary heart disease through the use of wearable devices,” says Chen. “We believe that in the era of personalized medicine, future interventions will be increasingly tailored to individual characteristics to maximize cardiovascular benefits. »

Lau agrees, saying “we need to stop treating men and women the same,” Lau says. “It’s 2025, and we’re still doing the same things: we’re extrapolating data from men to women. We see studies telling us that men and women are different, but the guidelines for them are all the same.”