Men need to exercise nearly twice as much as women for equal heart health benefits

Women benefit more from sport than men – especially when it comes to heart health, a new study has found.

Women who exercise for around four hours per week can reduce their risk of developing coronary heart disease by 30 per cent on average. Men need more than twice as much exercise – almost nine hours per week – to see the same benefits, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research.

Coronary heart disease causes the heart vessels to constrict or calcify, leading the heart to be less well-supplied with blood. Risks include an unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, and smoking.

Exercise can confer health benefits even at low levels, the study found. About 2.5 hours of moderate to vigorous exercise per week is enough to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 22 per cent among women and 17 per cent among men.

The findings came as a surprise to Karl Lauterbach, Germany's former health minister, who called them "unfair" on the social media platform X.

People who already have heart disease can also benefit from exercise, the study found. Women who get moderate to vigorous exercise for 51 minutes per week saw a lower risk of dying, while men needed 85 minutes.

That means in order to gain the same survival advantage, men need to exercise around 1.7 times as much as women.

Generally speaking, the more days per week a person is physically active, the lower their risk of developing heart disease, regardless of their gender.

Women's biological advantage could be related to hormones and muscle structure. The hormone oestrogen promotes fat-burning and has a protective effect on blood vessels.

Women also have more endurance-oriented muscle fibres, the study said, while men have more muscle fibres built for power and speed.

This could explain why women's hearts become healthier with less training.