Preventive cardiologist Dr. Verity Ramirez of the Lifespan Cardiovascular Institute stated, “The authors definitely brought up a few possible explanations.”

Women can exercise less frequently than males and still have larger health advantages, according to recent studies from the Smidt Heart Institute, to which she is alluding.

This 20-year observational study, conducted between 1997 and 2017, involved around 412,000 men and women participants.

Scientists believe there might be anatomical changes causing the discrepancy, albeit they have no hard evidence for this.

Without participating in the study, Ramirez asserted that “Women have lower muscle mass, smaller muscle fibers,”

Males often have bigger hearts and larger muscular fibers.

“Also women tend to have a later onset of cardiovascular disease than men do, so it could be that if we’re watching both for the same amount of time you just might not see those events yet for women,” stated Ramirez.

Regardless of the justification, Ramirez stated that this ought to be a call to action.

“It looks like both sexes, the cardiovascular benefit plateau’s, both around 300 minutes a week and that also looks where men also sort of derive the most benefit. For women it was around 140 minutes,” according to Ramirez.

Therefore, five hours for men is equivalent to little less than 2.5 hours for women. The standard recommendation is 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise.

“You’re definitely going to get a better reduction in cholesterol, a better reduction in blood pressure if you’re combining multiple things within your lifestyle, but certainly exercise alone does have benefits on cholesterol and on blood pressure and insulin resistance,” Ramirez said.

Walking also counts.

“Brisk walking counts so I tell folks anything that gets their heart rate up, they can still talk, but have a hard time singing a full song counts as moderate intensity exercise,” Ramirez said.