Greater Benefit for Women with Leisure Time Physical Activity

It is well known that regular physical activity can reduce cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Female individuals usually lag behind male individuals in exercise programs. But a study involving over four hundred thousand adults in the United States of America showed that women derive greater gains in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk reduction from equivalent levels of leisure-time physical activity [1]. The study had nearly 5 million person-years of follow up. Regular leisure-time physical activity was associated with 24% lower risk of all-cause mortality in females while the corresponding figure for males was 15%. Maximal survival benefit was noted in men at 300 min/week of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Women had similar benefits at 140 min/week and maximum survival benefit at around 300 min/week.

Reference

1. Hongwei Ji, Martha Gulati, Tzu Yu Huang, Alan C. Kwan, David Ouyang, Joseph E. Ebinger, Kaitlin Casaletto, Kerrie L. Moreau, Hicham Skali, and Susan Cheng. Sex Differences in Association of Physical Activity With All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2024 Feb, 83 (8) 783–793.