The Conversation – Exercise is like medicine for the heart, and just like with medication, you need the right “dose” for it to be effective.
But a recent study suggests that the dose might not be the same for everyone. Researchers found that men need roughly twice as much exercise as women to see the same reduction in their heart disease risk.
This recent study asked over 85,000 UK adults aged 37-73 to wear an accelerometer (a device that measures body movement and activity levels) on their wrist for seven days. They then tracked each participant’s health outcomes for just under eight years.
The results are eye-opening.
Women who did roughly four hours of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week – activities, such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling or dancing, which raise your breathing and heart rate – had around a 30% lower risk of coronary heart disease.
Men needed to do roughly nine hours of the same types of physical activity to see a similar reduction.
This was also true for people already living with heart disease. The paper estimated that women diagnosed with coronary heart disease needed to do around 51 minutes of physical activity each week to reduce their risk of death from any cause by 30% – while men needed to do around 85 minutes of exercise.
Although these findings might sound shocking to the average person, they confirm something that exercise scientists have suspected for years. There is also a clear biological reason that can partly help explain why women and men see such different results from physical activity.
Biological differences
Women typically have higher oestrogen levels than men. This hormone has important effects on how the body responds to exercise.
Oestrogen can help the body burn more fat for fuel during endurance exercise and helps keep the blood vessels healthy – partly by supporting their energy-producing mitochondria …
