Women who exercise for 150 minutes a week will lower the risk of death significantly more than men who do the same.
This is according to a new observational study that suggests that when it comes to physical activity, women can do less and benefit more.
"The beauty of this study is learning that women can get more out of each minute of moderate to vigorous activity than men," Cedars-Sinai Hospital cardiologist Dr. Martha Gulati, co-author of the study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, told CBS News.
The researchers asked 412,413 U.S. adults about their physical activity habits every few years from 1997 to 2019 — a period in which nearly 40,000 participants died, including 11,670 from cardiovascular problems
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At the end of the period, the researchers concluded that for men, those who engaged in 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week saw the greatest reduction in risk of premature death from any cause at 18 percent.
Women, on the other hand, needed only 140 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week to lower the risk of death by 18%.
"And their risk continued to decrease as they increased to 300 minutes per week," according to CBS.
Men who exercised at least 150 minutes a week were 15% less likely to die than men who exercised less, but women who exercised the same amount were 24% less likely to die from any cause than women who exercised less.
Women who exercised also had a 36% lower risk of having a cardiovascular event, while men who exercised had a 14% reduced risk.
A woman lifts weights/ShutterStock
In addition, women achieved the greatest benefit from one session per week of muscle-strengthening activities, associated with a 30% reduction in cardiovascular risk, compared to three sessions per week for men, associated with an 11% reduction in risk.
Because the study was observational, the researchers can't say for sure that exercise causes a lower risk.
But as CBS reports, "men on average have proportionally larger hearts, wider healthy airways, greater diffusing capacity of the lungs, and larger muscle fibers than women," so it makes sense that certain activities require more physical effort from women than from men and lead to greater speed and greater profits.
This study certainly shows that "for a given amount of time and effort invested in physical activity, women had more to gain than men," Cedars-Siney senior study author and cardiologist Dr. Susan Cheng told CNN.
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