A scientific study reveals that the Men need almost twice as much exercise as women to obtain the same cardiovascular benefits. In this way, he concludes that the global physical activity guidelines should consider the biological differences between both sexes, since the same level of training does not produce equivalent results.

After analyzing the activity records of more than 80,000 adults, The researchers discovered that Women who exercised 250 minutes per week reduced their risk of coronary heart disease by 30%.

Instead, the men they had to reach the 530 minutes per week. That is, almost nine hours to achieve a similar effect on your cardiovascular health.

The work, published by Nature Cardiovascular Researchpoints out that although global recommendations establish a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity per week, that standard does not reflect biological differences between men and women.

The research was also taken up in an article by Emily Lau, cardiologist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.

According to the results, the Women obtain greater benefits with less effort. Among the possible causes of this significant difference, scientists mention hormonal, muscular and metabolic factors.

He team led by Dr. Jiajin Chen, of the Xiamen University in China, used data from the UK Biobank project, a medical information base which includes thousands of middle-aged volunteers. None of the 80,243 participants had coronary heart disease at baseline. They were all monitored with devices who recorded their level of physical activity for several years.

In that group, the Women who met the minimum goal of 150 minutes per week showed a 22% lower risk of developing heart disease in a period of eight years, compared to 17% in men in the same period.

The scientists observed that the profits increased more pronounced in women by increasing their exercise time.

The analysis also included 5169 patients who already had coronary heart disease. In that case, the Active women had a mortality rate three times lower than that of men with similar levels of exercise. The authors noted that this finding demonstrates that the Physical activity is a powerful tool to prolong lifeespecially among women.

The teacher Yan Wangone of the main authors, explained that Both sexes can gain “substantial cardiovascular benefits” from staying active. And he warned that throughout the world women tend to exercise less that menwhich increases your risk of heart disease. “We especially hope that our findings encourage physically inactive women to increase their physical activity.”thus reducing your cardiovascular risk,” he expressed.

Scientists have not yet been able to fully explain why women achieve better results with less exercise time. Among the explanations analyzed, the hormonal variationsthe characteristics of the muscle fibers and sugar metabolization efficiency. These differences could influence how the body processes effort and repairs tissues after training.

As they detailed, “estrogens can promote loss of body fat during physical activity.”

“Another reason could be the considerable sexual disparity in skeletal muscle morphological composition. Specifically, Men have a higher percentage of type II muscle fiberswhile the skeletal muscle of the women is dominated by type I muscle fiberswhich entails disparities in muscle metabolism”, they marked.

They also pointed out that “the men have greater glycolytic capacitywhile the Women are characterized by a greater muscle oxidative capacity”.

For its part, the Dr. Emily Laua specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, highlighted in an accompanying article that these results confirm the need to adopt “women-specific strategies” in cardiovascular prevention.

“This study provides further evidence that There is no single solution for all women and it challenges us to move from theory to practice.. Is Time to incorporate specific strategies for women in clinical guidelines and develop personalized interventions to optimize their cardiovascular health,” he highlighted.

The American Heart Association, the European Society of Cardiology, and the World Health Organization recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per weekfor both men and women. They also advise incorporating strength training twice a week. However, this new study questions the uniformity of these guidelines and raises the need to review them according to sex.

The study proposes rethink traditional recommendations. Experts suggest customize routines according to gender and physical condition. In the case of men, reaching 530 minutes a week of moderate to intense activity could be key to reducing heart risk to the same level that women achieve with half the time.