Although women exercise at a lower rate than men, recent studies have shown that they gain more from physical activity.
During the research period, a 24% decreased risk of death was seen among women who exercised consistently, defined as at least 2.5 hours of steady activity or 75 minutes of intense exercise per week, when compared to those who did not exercise. Alternatively, compared to males who didn’t exercise, those who did so frequently had a 15% lower risk of death.
At the same time, males required greater exercise than women did to reap the same health benefits. Their mortality risk was 18% lower than that of inactive men when they exercised for five hours a week at moderate to high intensity. Interestingly, a similar impact was shown in women with as little as 140 minutes of activity per week.
The study discovered that consistent exercise reduced the chance of death from cardiovascular issues (heart attacks, strokes, etc.) by 36% for women and just 14% for men.
More About the Study
- Researchers looked at the self-reported exercise regimens of over 412,000 participants in the National Health Interview Survey, which was conducted between 1997 and 2017.
- Approximately a third of the women and 43% of the men in the study participated in aerobic exercises on a regular basis. These include fast walking, rope jumping, and spin classes, all of which raise the heart rate.
- Strength training with weights was found to be less common among women than men.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, an adult should engage in 150 minutes of regular physical activity each week, with two days dedicated to strength training. However, renowned cardiologist Dr. Martha Gulati, M.D., said that these numbers seem overwhelming to most female patients who don’t exercise much at all.
According to the National Health Interview Survey, more women than men received the recommendation in 2022 to increase their physical activity levels from healthcare providers in the previous year.
Research suggests that males and females are impacted by exercise in different ways. Paul Arciero, a sports and nutrition professor at the University of Pittsburgh, says that keeping this in mind, it makes sense to have different guidelines for the genders when it comes to physical activity.
According to research conducted by Arciero in 2022, morning activity resulted in more significant drops in blood pressure for women, while men had greater drops at night. Moreover, muscles in women are more resilient to the effects of high-intensity training exhaustion, according to a 2020 assessment.
Women seem to be better when it comes to heart health when exercising, Arciero noted. The advantage may be due, in part, to physiological differences; women have more capillaries – small blood vessels – in any given area of muscle, which may increase the amount of blood and oxygen that reaches the heart when they work out.
