Empowering Women: Research Reveals Simple Ways to Extend Lifespan

Empowering Women: Research Reveals Simple Ways to Extend Lifespan

A study involving over 400,000 participants from the U.S. and China reveals that women need only 140 minutes of weekly exercise, compared to 300 minutes for men, to achieve similar health benefits. High-intensity workouts also show notable differences, with women requiring just 57 minutes to significantly reduce mortality risk. The research highlights greater health benefits for women per minute of exercise and calls for exercise guidelines that consider gender and age differences.

Study Reveals Women Need Less Exercise for Health Benefits

A recent study conducted in the United States and China has uncovered a fascinating insight: women require significantly less physical activity than men to reap the same health rewards. This comprehensive research involved over 400,000 participants and spanned from 1997 to 2019.

The findings reveal that men experience the greatest decrease in mortality risk with approximately 300 minutes of weekly exercise. In contrast, women only need to engage in 140 minutes per week to achieve similar health benefits.

Impact of Intense Training on Mortality Risk

The study also highlighted the benefits of shorter, high-intensity workouts. Men who participated in intense training for just 110 minutes each week saw their mortality risk decrease by 19 percent. Women, on the other hand, only needed 57 minutes of vigorous activity to achieve a significant reduction in their mortality risk.

These important findings were published in the ‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’ (JACC) by researchers Martha Gulati from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and Hongwei Ji from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Gulati pointed out that women tend to be less active than men, and her research team analyzed the impact of exercise on overall health using data from the ‘National Health Interview Survey’. The study included 412,413 adults, of whom 55 percent were women, who provided details about their weekly physical activities.

Over the two-decade study period, nearly 40,000 participants passed away, including 11,670 deaths attributed to cardiovascular diseases.

The statistics from this study are compelling: engaging in regular physical activity during leisure time significantly lowers mortality risk compared to those who do not exercise. Men enjoyed an average 15 percent reduction in mortality risk, while women experienced a remarkable 24 percent reduction.

When focusing on cardiovascular diseases specifically, men saw a 14 percent reduction, whereas women achieved a substantial 36 percent reduction. Additionally, regular strength training was found to decrease the mortality risk from cardiovascular issues by 11 percent for men and 30 percent for women.

Gulati emphasizes the importance of recognizing that women receive greater benefits from every minute spent on moderate to intense physical activity compared to men. She hopes the results of this study will motivate more women to incorporate exercise into their lives, as the time investment required for positive health outcomes is relatively small.

Kuno Hottenrott from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg supports these findings, advocating for exercise recommendations in health guidelines that take gender and age into account. He developed a formula back in 2008 to determine the ideal heart rate for endurance sports, acknowledging the physiological differences between men and women, such as variations in muscle mass, metabolic rates, body sizes, and blood volume.