Exercise increases longevity in women more than in men

A new study suggests that women may need less exercise than men to live a long, healthy life. men To get the same longevity benefits. This finding is notable given physical activity guidelines American adult They are the same for both sexes. However, partly due to differences in size, muscle mass, and lean body mass, it appears that women can make great strides by doing about half the activity of their male counterparts to achieve the same benefits.

The facts show that for men, the maximum “survival benefit” is derived from 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week. When men exercised this amount, they had an 18% lower risk of dying than inactive men.

Women needed to exercise only 140 minutes a week to reduce their mortality risk by 18 percent. If women exercised 300 minutes a week, their risk was reduced by 24 percent.

Men get the most benefit from doing three sessions of muscle-strengthening activity a week, compared to women, who get equal benefits from one muscle-strengthening session a week.

In usaOnly a quarter of adults meet the recommended physical activity guidelines of at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise and two muscle-strengthening activities per week. men more likely than women Adherence to recommendations in all age groups.

“Being physically active matters and impacts overall survival,” he said. Martha GulatiDirector of Preventive Cardiology Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and co-author of the study, published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, “But small amounts can have a big impact, and in fact, for women, small amounts can have a bigger impact than for men,” he said.

To conduct the study, researchers examined more than 400,000 American adults who provided survey data on leisure activities from 1997 to 2017 and compared that data to death records.

Nearly 40,000 deaths from all causes occurred during the follow-up period, including approximately 12,000 cardiovascular deaths. When looking at the difference between men And womenIt became clear that women received greater longevity benefits from exercise.

Experts say the explanation may lie in physiology.

“Men require more exercise partly due to the fact that they have more muscle mass and more lean body mass,” Gulati said. “And so, when they exercise, the whole body, including the muscles, need a longer period of time to benefit,” he said.

Gulati said that menOn average, they have Heart Proportionally larger and more voluminous muscle fibers womenBut in comparison to them the density of capillaries per unit unit of skeletal muscle is higher.

“They’re getting increased blood flow earlier than men who get less exercise,” he said.

mercedes carnethonProfessor and Vice President of Preventive Medicine at Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, agree that physiological differences between the sexes may help explain the findings. She was not involved in the new study.

“There are structural differences in the hearts of both men And women, so men’s hearts are a little more efficient,” Carnethon said. “Basically, there are differences in the ability to achieve physical fitness,” he said.

Gulati hopes the findings of this study will help reduce the “gender gap” in exercise by motivating women. women Participating in regular physical leisure activities. according to him National Center for Health Statistics28.3% of men meet national exercise guidelines, while only 20.4% of women do so.

“Whenever someone gives you guidelines that are similar men And women, at least as a doctor and someone who studies gender differences, my antennae will always be up,” he said. “I would always ask, ‘What is this based on? How can we be equal?'” he added.

Ulrich WisloffHead of Cardiac Exercise Research Group Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheimsaid the new study’s data “fits exactly” what they have seen in their own studies, which found women They require less exercise than men For protection against lifestyle related diseases and untimely death.

“Their data is very interesting to me, and it’s an area that has been ignored for a very long time,” said Wisloff, who was not involved in the new study.

While physical activity has longevity benefits men And women The authors of the new study say that while gender differences are more similar with low amounts of physical activity, gender differences emerge with higher doses of exercise.

A 2011 Taiwanese cohort study of 416,175 individuals – 199,265 men and 216,910 women – found that the risk of all-cause mortality in both sexes was 14% lower over a three-year period with just 15 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per day. Life expectancy was. Or about 90 minutes per week compared to inactive individuals.

But a 2011 meta-analysis of 33 studies showed that the relative risk of coronary heart disease was about one and a half to two times lower in women who met basic exercise guidelines than in men with similar levels of physical activity.

Washington Post