Women benefit more from cardiovascular exercise than men do, and with less of it

In findings reported by a National Institute of Health study, it was discovered that women required less physical activity than men did to reach their “maximum survival benefit.” Keep reading below for more details.

The study, called “Sex Differences in Association of Physical Activity With All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality,” published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, had an objective of evaluating “whether physical activity derived health benefits may differ by sex.”

The study found that women needed two and a half hours of moderate to vigorous physical activity in order to reach their “maximum survival benefit,” while men required more than double that amount of physical activity to reach their maximum survival benefit. In the press release, it was noted that these differences in exercise could be attributed to the differences in anatomy or physiology between men and women:

Men often have increased lung capacity, larger hearts, more lean-body mass, and a greater proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers compared to women. As a result, women may use added respiratory, metabolic, and strength demands to conduct the same movement and in turn reap greater health rewards.

But what does it mean? According to the study, the findings show that even a limited amount of exercise can have huge benefits for both men and women, but especially for women. In the study, researchers looked at over 400,000 American adults between 1997 and 2019.

The study found that women who engaged in regular aerobic exercise reduced their chances of cardiovascular-related death by 36%, whereas men who did the same reduced their chances of cardiovascular-related death by 11%. When it came to strength training, women reduced the same risk by 30%, while men reduced the risk by another 11% margin.

Additionally, the study found that men who got 300 minutes of aerobic exercise per week had an 18% lower risk of dying compared to inactive men, whereas with women, only 140 minutes of aerobic exercise per week was needed to get an equivalent benefit. Moreover, for women who did get 300 minutes of aerobic exercise on a weekly basis, their risk of death was 24% lower than someone who was inactive.