A new study found that men may require significantly more exercise than women to net similar improvements in heart health.
The observational study of more than 85,000 adults in the United Kingdom was published in Nature Cardiovascular Research. The researchers leveraged data from a week-long period of fitness tracker measurements to assess how physical activity relates to heart disease risk and mortality.
Women who engaged in roughly four hours of moderate exercise per week reduced their risk of coronary heart disease by about 30%. However, men required nearly twice as much —around eight hours —of similar activity to achieve the same level of heart health benefits.
Additionally, women who already had heart disease experienced a threefold greater drop in mortality risk than comparable men. To match that benefit, men needed almost twice as much weekly exercise.
Moderate-intensity exercise includes activities such as gardening or brisk walking. It encompasses movements that are sufficient to get the heart pumping but not to the point of exhaustion, says Jennifer Miao, a board-certified cardiologist and fellow of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Adults should get at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 90 minutes of vigorous activity, or a combination of both, according to the American Heart Association. However, even when following these guidelines, the study found a stark difference in benefits between men and women.
“Physiologically, circulating estrogen levels are much higher in females than in males, and estrogen can promote body fat loss during exercise,” Dr. Jiajin Chen, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in China, theorized about the reason for the differences when speaking with ABC News.
Another potential reason, says Chen, is that men tend to have more “fast-twitch” muscles, which are ideal for quick, powerful movements. Alternatively, women tend to have more “slow-twitch” muscles, which may help them work more efficiently during these types of workouts.
“These physiological differences may partly explain the increased sensitivity to physical activity and greater cardiovascular benefit observed in females,” he said.