Moderate exercise is more protective of women's hearts - study

Following physical activity guidelines gives women with heart disease three times more likely to reduce their risk of death than men, according to a new study published in Nature Cardiovascular Research.

The study was based on analysing data from more than 85,000 people from the UK Biobank, where participants wore fitness trackers on their wrist. Participants were divided by gender and by the presence/absence of coronary heart disease (CHD) to assess how much regular physical activity affected their risk of developing it and mortality.

Women benefit more with less effort

The World Health Organisation and the American Heart Association recommend that adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week. But these recommendations are the same for everyone, although physiologically men and women respond differently to exertion.

A new study confirms that:

• in women without cardiovascular disease, meeting the minimum guideline reduced the risk of CHD by 22 per cent,

• but only 17% for men in the same group.

The analysis also showed that for women, 250 minutes of activity per week reduced the risk of developing CHD by 30 per cent. To achieve a similar result, men need to exercise twice as long - 530 minutes.

If you already have the disease, the effect is even greater

Among 5,169 participants with diagnosed CHD (1,553 women and 3,616 men), those who met the physical activity guidelines reduced their overall mortality risk, but the effect was three times greater in women than in men.

This discovery makes a case for rethinking "universal" norms and moving towards gender-specific recommendations in the prevention and treatment of heart disease.

What does this mean for medicine?

"We see that women derive significantly greater health benefits from physical activity than previously thought," notes Jiajin Chen, lead author of the study. - "This suggests that standard approaches to recommendations and treatments need to be reconsidered."

The study raises the question: if women achieve greater benefits from less activity, perhaps personalised recommendations that take into account gender and physiology will be more effective in combating cardiovascular disease.

The authors emphasise that more research is needed on more diverse samples, including people of different races, ages and regions, to reach definitive conclusions.