{"id":220427,"date":"2026-01-06T23:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220427\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T23:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:32:09","slug":"why-women-may-get-more-from-exercise-than-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220427\/","title":{"rendered":"Why women may get more from exercise than men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cardiologists emphasize that the comparison isn\u2019t between men and women\u2014but between people who move and those who don\u2019t. \u201cIt\u2019s showing that a woman who exercises compared to a woman who doesn’t exercise\u2014the relative benefit appears greater than if you take a man who exercises compared to a man who doesn’t exercise,\u201d says Carolyn Lam<\/a>, a women\u2019s heart health cardiologist and senior consultant at the National Heart Centre of Singapore, was serving as deputy editor at JACC when this paper was published. \u00a0\u201cThe comparisons are within sex, not between sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, a 2025 study<\/a> in Nature echoed these findings using wearable data from more than 85,000 participants in the U.K. to assess coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence. Women who met the 150-minute-per-week physical activity guideline had a 22 percent lower risk of CHD, compared to 17 percent for men.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sale Extended – Save up to $20!<\/p>\n

PLUS, for a limited time, get bonus gifts and issues with all Nat Geo subscriptions.<\/p>\n

(Here\u2019s what lifting weights does to your body\u2014and your mind<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

As weekly activity increased, the gap widened further. With 250 minutes of weekly movement, women\u2019s risk dropped 30 percent, while men needed 530 minutes to see the same reduction. They also observed lower mortality risk among patients with existing CHD.<\/p>\n

Taken together, these findings suggest that current exercise guidelines may not fully capture how different bodies respond to physical activity\u2014and that researchers are only beginning to understand why. Scientists also found that women typically underreport exercise compared to men, so they ran a secondary analysis to account for this and found similar results.<\/p>\n

Why might women benefit more?<\/p>\n

Researchers don\u2019t yet fully understand the mechanisms, but Lam says cardiologists have a few theories. \u201cThe mechanisms likely involve multiple systems working in concert,\u201d she says. That could include larger boosts in HDL (the \u201cgood\u201d cholesterol), improved blood vessel function (endothelial function), and more efficient metabolic adaptations with each workout.<\/p>\n

One likely contributor is estrogen. \u201cThere are data that show that estrogen, the woman\u2019s sex hormone, has some cardioprotective effects,\u201d says Lam. \u201cIt could amplify the effects of exercise on these adaptations in our blood vessels and the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2017 literature review<\/a> explains that estrogen (specifically estradiol, or E2) helps protect the heart by improving blood flow and reducing damage. It does this by encouraging the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis), increasing blood flow through vasodilation, and lowering harmful byproducts, such as oxidative stress and inflammation, which can damage tissues and organs, including the heart.<\/p>\n

That said, this doesn\u2019t mean women should jump to get on hormone therapy. \u201cThese are postulations,\u201d she emphasizes. \u201cAnd prospective studies<\/a> haven\u2019t proven that hormone replacement therapy provides this benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Women are turning to testosterone to feel younger. Here\u2019s what the science really says<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiologists emphasize that the comparison isn\u2019t between men and women\u2014but between people who move and those who don\u2019t.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[132649,132647,132651,565,134,111,139,69,132654,132648,132652,132650,132653,132646],"class_list":{"0":"post-220427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-exercise-and-mortality-risk-women","9":"tag-exercise-benefits-for-women","10":"tag-exercise-guidelines-women","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-physical-activity-guidelines-men-women","17":"tag-physical-activity-women-heart-health","18":"tag-sex-differences-in-exercise-benefits","19":"tag-women-and-heart-disease-prevention","20":"tag-women-cardiovascular-health-exercise","21":"tag-women-exercise-benefits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}