Dr. Zaslow says “females exhibit greater vascular conductance and blood flow during exercise,” when compared to male counterparts.
Article Link: Exercise: Women may get more health benefits in less time than men (medicalnewstoday.com)
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- Men and women who exercise regularly are less likely to die prematurely of any cause, including a cardiovascular event, compared to those who are sedentary.
- Researchers also report that women see more pronounced benefits than men from regular exercise.
- They added that exercise routines should contain both aerobic exercise and strength training.
Most everyone benefits from regular exercise, but women may see bigger cardiovascular benefits than men — and in less time, too, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
In their study, researchers looked at a group of 400,000 men and women in the United States over the course of two decades.
They reported that women who exercised regularly were 24% less likely to die from any cause during the study period and also had a 36% lower risk of fatal heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular event compared to women who did not exercise regularly.
At the same time, men who exercised regularly were 15% less likely to die and had a 14% lower risk of fatal cardiovascular event compared to sedentary men.
The benefits of regular exercise weren’t limited to aerobics.
Strength training also appeared to have significant benefits and women were once again the bigger beneficiaries.
For instance, women who did regular strength training exercises saw a 19% reduced risk of death while men saw an 11% reduced risk compared to their inactive peers. That also includes a 30% lower risk of a cardiovascular event for women and an 11% lower risk of cardiovascular events for men.
As to why those results might be, it comes down to the differences in men’s and women’s bodies.
“Females exhibit greater vascular conductance and blood flow during exercise, with females having a higher
density of capillaries per unit of skeletal muscle when compared with males,” said Dr. Tracy Zaslow, a primary care sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles and a team physician for Angel City Football Club and LA Galaxy.
“Accordingly, although females have generally lower muscle strength at baseline, when both males and females undergo strength training, females experience greater relative improvements in strength, which is a stronger predictor of mortality than muscle mass,” Zaslow, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
In a similar topic article in Healthline.com, Dr Zaslow makes some suggestions on how to exercise to stay healthy.
“Both genders may benefit from working towards a goal of 300 min/week,” Zaslow suggested, adding that “sex-specific considerations could enhance individual risk assessments and tailored exercise prescriptions in the effort to increase engagement in physical activity, especially for females.”
Read full Healthline article here. Compared to Men, Women Get More Benefits From Exercise (healthline.com)
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