W“Women need half as much exercise as men to reap the same longevity benefits,” says a new study. Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
This is good news for women who struggle to stay motivated to hit the gym, says study co-author Dr. Martha Gulati, director of preventive cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. “For me, the news for women is that a little goes a long way,” says Gulati.
The study found that men who did about 300 minutes of aerobic exercise each week had an 18% lower risk of death than men who did not exercise. However, women needed only 140 minutes of exercise per week to achieve the same benefits, and women who exercised about 300 minutes per week had a 24% lower risk of death. (For both men and women, the longevity benefits seem to plateau after 300 minutes of exercise per week.)
The researchers conducted a similar analysis for muscle-strengthening exercises such as weight training. The researchers found the same pattern. For women, they found that once a week strength training sessions had just as much longevity benefits as training three times a week for men.
Because women tend to have less muscle mass than men, “when performing the same amount of strength-strengthening exercise, you may get a greater benefit from a lower dose based on the fact that you have less muscle mass to begin with.” ” Gulati explains. ” Other sex-based physiological differences, such as differences in the lungs and cardiopulmonary system, may also play a role.
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To reach their findings, Gulati and colleagues analyzed the self-reported exercise habits of more than 400,000 U.S. adults who participated in the National Health Interview Survey from 1997 to 2017 and compared those data with death records. . Approximately 40,000 of the participants died during the study period.
Its observational approach, which means researchers looked for patterns in existing data, cannot prove cause and effect. Perhaps exercise didn’t make people live longer, but rather that the active people in the study were healthier overall or had other lifestyle habits that promoted longevity. By excluding people who had serious pre-existing conditions or mobility limitations, or who died during the first two years of study follow-up, the researchers found that by excluding people who may have been unhealthy to begin with, I tried to control these possibilities.
The study was also limited in that it relied on self-reported exercise data, which is not always accurate. The survey also asked about exercise people did in their free time, so it may not have taken into account physical activity done at work or while doing housework. Research increasingly suggests that this type of exercise can meaningfully improve your health.
Due in part to these limitations, Gulati says more research is needed to confirm the findings. But this study, and others that have reached similar conclusions, provide a clear signal that women are more than just little men, and that gender-based differences must be incorporated into research and public health policy. Must be, she says. “For years, we’ve used men as the standard,” Gulati says. Even if it’s not accurate.
Consider the federal guidelines on physical activity. The guidelines make the same overarching recommendations for U.S. adults: at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise (or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise) and two strength-strengthening sessions each week. Masu. Approximately 28% of U.S. men achieved both standards in 2020, compared to 20% of U.S. women, according to the data.
Gulati’s research suggests, at the very least, that even if women don’t fully achieve these goals, they may still see significant longevity benefits. But she says the study shouldn’t be discouraging to men either.
New research suggests that just a few minutes of exercise a day can extend your lifespan, so both men and women can benefit from even very short periods of activity.
“Our pitch should be the same for men and women: something is better than nothing,” Gulati says. “Sit less and move more.”