Exercise is like medicine for your heart. Like drugs, exercise requires the right “dose” to be effective. However, recent research suggests that the dosage may not be the same for everyone.
Researchers found that men needed to exercise roughly twice as much as women to see the same weight loss. heart disease risk.
this Recent research 85,000 British adults aged 37 to 73 were asked 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 less than eight years.
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The results are amazing.
Women who did about four hours a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity that increases breathing and heart rate, such as brisk walking, jogging, biking, or dancing, had about a 30 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease.
To see similar reductions, men would need to perform the same type of physical activity for approximately 9 hours.
This was also true for people who already had heart disease. The paper estimated that women diagnosed with coronary heart disease would need to get about 51 minutes of physical activity each week to reduce their risk of death from any cause by 30 percent, while men would need about 85 minutes of exercise.
These findings may sound shocking to the average person, but they confirm what exercise scientists have suspected for years.
There are also clear biological reasons that may help explain, in part, why women and men see such different results from physical activity.
biological differences
Women generally have higher estrogen levels than men. This hormone has a significant impact on how your body responds to exercise.
Estrogen may benefit the body Burn more fat for fuel during endurance exercise blood vessel Health – in part by supporting energy-producing mitochondria – tiny power plants inside cells that generate energy for vital functions.
Women also tend to have more. slow twitch muscle fibersIt is efficient and fatigue-resistant. These muscles are suited to the steady, sustained physical activity recommended in most exercise guidelines.
So the difference in “time needed” to achieve similar cardiac benefits between women and men is not as shocking as the research might suggest.
Since using it in research Instrument measurement activitiesThis means that rather than asking people to recall from memory how much activity they did, the data on their physical activity is accurate.
It is also important to note that this study still showed a graded benefit. Higher total weekly activity was associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease in both women and men. Everyone benefits from moving more. The difference lies in how many activities purchase the same risk reduction.
This study doesn’t argue that women should exercise less, nor does it suggest that men can’t reap similar benefits. This just shows that men may need more weekly activity to get there.
However, there are limitations to keep in mind. Activity was measured for just one week, and people were then followed for about eight years.
And because it was an observational study, it did not take into account other factors that could partially affect the results, such as menopausal status (when estrogen levels fall significantly) or whether the women were using hormone replacement therapy (which can restore some estrogen levels). These factors can affect how a woman’s body responds to exercise.
It is also worth noting that the volunteers came from the UK Biobank study. these volunteers tend to be healthier Less deprived than the general population – factors that may affect baseline heart health, access to safe places to exercise, and time available for physical activity. This may affect how broadly the results apply to everyone.
Nonetheless, these results raise important points about current exercise recommendations and whether modifications are needed.
exercise recommendations
Current exercise guidelines are world health organizationThe American Heart Association and the NHS are gender neutral. However, this new study challenges these recommendations and shows that they may not apply equally to everyone.
For decades, most exercise research Mainly done to men The results were often assumed to apply equally to women. As better device-based data arrives, we are learning that women and men can achieve different results for the same number of minutes of activity.
This is important because women and men matter. Experiencing Heart Disease Differently – From symptoms to results. When the amount of exercise needed to achieve the same benefit varies, our advice needs to reflect this while remaining simple and practical.
I’m not telling women to exercise less. The 150-minute standard is still a useful goal. Many people still do not meet this requirement.. These findings suggest that women who currently meet their goals may reap more heart health benefits per minute of exercise. This is encouraging news for anyone struggling to find longer workout sessions.
For men, the message isn’t “Double your gym time.” It’s about continuing to build your activities in a way that fits into your week. Increasing the total time provides even greater heart health benefits. Whether different exercise types or intensities are more efficient for men remains a question for future research.
Both men and women clearly benefit from regular physical activity. That’s not a problem. But what you need to recognize is that there are clear biological differences between men and women that affect how much they get from the same type of exercise.
cardiac rehabilitation Recommended exercise plans often set the same goals for men and women. This new research suggests we may want to rethink our plans and tailor our goals to each individual’s starting point.
But until cardiac rehabilitation becomes more personalized, the key message for now is to move more and sit less. If possible, aim to get 150 minutes of exercise each week as a baseline. More help would be appreciated if possible.
Jack McNamaraSenior lecturer in clinical exercise physiology, University of East London
This article is republished from: conversation Under Creative Commons License. read original article.
