Men, women and sport: are we equal when it comes to cardiac risk?

A study published in the prestigious journal Nature has just revealed a major difference between the sexes regarding the benefits of exercise on the heart. And the results are clear: women appear to be better protected than men at the same level of exertion.

Researchers followed 80,000 participants, observing their lifestyle, physical activity, and the potential occurrence of a myocardial infarction. The result: to reduce the risk of a heart attack by 30%, women need approximately 4 hours of physical activity per week, compared to 8 hours for men. In other words, women benefit from a faster and more pronounced protective effect against cardiovascular risk.

Scientists offer several explanations:

• Hormonal factors: estrogens play a protective role on blood vessels.
• Muscular factors: composition and metabolic response to exercise differ between sexes.
• Fat distribution: abdominal fat, more common in men, increases cardiovascular risk, while peripheral fat, more common in women, is less harmful.

Does this mean we should revise current recommendations? Not really. The 150 minutes of exercise per week recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) remains an essential benchmark. But this study argues for more personalized recommendations, taking into account sex and risk profile. A sedentary lifestyle remains a global risk factor, affecting not only the heart and arteries, but also metabolism, the brain, and even certain cancers.

Compared to inactive individuals, participants meeting the WHO minimum recommendations (≥150 min/week) showed:

• a 22% reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease in women,
• and 17% in men ( Pinteraction = 0.009 ).

And the more activity increased, the greater the net profit:

• In women, the risk dropped by 30% at 250 minutes/week,
• In men, it took 530 minutes/week to achieve the same level of protection.