Men may have to exercise more than women to get same heart benefits

Men over 50 may have to exercise more than twice as much as women to get the same heart health benefits. An analysis of activity tracker data found that men in this age group need nearly 9 hours per week of moderate to vigorous activity – like brisk walking or cycling – to gain a 30 per cent drop in coronary heart disease risk, compared with about 4 hours for women.

Scientists already suspected that women got more cardiac benefits than men based on self-reported exercise data, but such figures aren’t always accurate.

To overcome that problem, Jiajin Chen at Xiamen University in China and his colleagues retrieved data from wrist-worn activity trackers collected by the UK Biobank study and compared that with participants’ health records over a period of about eight years.

First, the team analysed information from 80,243 adults, with an average age of 61, who had no personal history of coronary heart disease. Among women, those who did at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week saw a 22 per cent drop in their risk of developing coronary heart disease. For men, getting this amount of exercise was linked to just a 17 per cent drop.

Achieving a 30 per cent risk reduction required significantly more exercise – with a notable sex difference: 250 minutes for women, and 530 for men.

Then, the team looked at 5169 participants who had already been diagnosed with coronary heart disease. They had an average age of 67 and two-thirds of them were men. With 150 minutes of weekly moderate to vigorous exercise, women were 70 per cent less likely to die over the next roughly eight years – for any reason – than women who exercised less. By contrast, men who did 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week were only about 20 per cent less likely to die than their less active counterparts.

“This isn’t bad news for men, it’s just something we should know about,” says Nir Eynon at Monash University, Australia. “Once we know, we can do better – we can do more exercise. And while it’s reassuring for women who are busy all the time, I also think women should not miss the fact that they need to exercise as well.”

Chen and his colleagues weren’t available for comment, but in their paper, they suggest the discrepancy may be explained by hormones, as higher oestrogen levels might enhance fat burning during exercise. It could also be related to biological differences that could mean women use more respiratory, metabolic and muscular strength to achieve the same physical tasks as men, says Eynon.

The study is “robust” and underscores the need for sex-specific guidelines, says Ersilia DeFilippis at Columbia University, New York City. A drawback, however, is that it is focused on a primarily well-off, well-educated population that was about 93 per cent white. Black women tend to have worse cardiovascular outcomes than white women, says DeFilippis, and social factors play a significant role in health and adherence to treatment plans.

“Understanding how these findings apply to a more racially diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged population will be imperative in the future, given their higher burden of cardiovascular disease,” she says.

Even so, the findings in this older population suggest that even exercise later in life can have significant benefits – although activity should be tailored to people’s age and physical capacities, she adds. “It’s never too late to start moving and be more active.”