Women not only receive greater health benefits than men from exercise but they receive the same benefits as men in nearly half the time, and for the same volume of exercise they have a lower risk of premature death, according to the results of a study published Feb. 19 in JACC. 

In a prospective analysis of 412,413 U.S. adults (mean age, 43.9 years; 54.7% women; 14.4% identified as Black and 18.4% Hispanic), who participated in the National Health Interview Survey with self-reports of their physical activity from1997 to 2019, Hongwei Ji, MD, et al., found that women who engage in aerobic exercise were 24% less likely to die from any cause and 36% less likely to die from a cardiovascular event – compared with 15% and 14%, respectively for men.

Researchers found that to gain an 18% reduced risk of premature death, women needed only 140 minutes of moderate weekly exercise, vs. 300 minutes for men, and with only 57 minutes of vigorous exercise, women gained a 19% reduced risk of premature death while men required 110 minutes.

Women who engaged weekly in 300 minutes of moderate exercise or 110 minutes of vigorous exercise reduced their risk of premature death by 24%. Weekly strength training reduced the risk of all-cause death in women by 19% and men by 11%, and cardiovascular-related death by 30% in women and 11% in men.

Of note, during the study 43% of men engaged in weekly exercise and 28% in strength training. Only 33% of women engaged in weekly exercise and 20% in strength training.

This imbalance is one of the reasons this study’s outcome is so important, according to an accompanying editorial comment by Wael A. Jaber, MD, FACC, and Erika Hutt, MD. “This sex-specific benefit shown in women has the potential to influence sex-specific exercise recommendations in major societal guidelines,” Jaber and Hunt write. “This may encourage physically inactive women to engage more in leisure-time physical activity, given a more achievable goal in those women who believe that time is a barrier to exercise. In addition, it may motivate physically active women to increase their exercise engagement.”

“Even a limited amount of regular exercise can provide a major benefit, and it turns out this is especially true for women,” said senior author Susan Cheng, MD, FACC, from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “Taking some regular time out for exercise, even if it’s just 20-30 minutes of vigorous exercise a few times each week, can offer a lot more gain than they may realize.”