A groundbreaking Nature study reveals that women gain far more heart protection from far less exercise and exposes the quiet bias built into decades of health advice.
Absolutely and what’s striking is how low the bar is.
So much of this isn’t about new technology or breakthroughs, it’s about finally designing studies that include women as women, not as statistical noise.
I use my autism diagnosis as a baseline example - it took 48 years to get the diagnosis that made my entire life make sense. And that’s something that actually presents. I feel like as I age, we women at least start talking among ourselves, first it was miscarriage now it’s menopause. But it’s us being affected that drives the discussion, not yet the monies that fund the right research!
Exactly Liz and your story exposes the real flaw in the system.
Women aren’t hard to diagnose; we’re hard to diagnose when the data is built on male baselines!. The delay isn’t in women’s bodies. It’s in the research that never centered them. And until that changes, women’s lived experiences just keep revealing the gaps long before the science catches up.
This is exactly where advocacy starts for me. We turn our own stories into signal, then keep amplifying them until researchers, funders, and policymakers can’t not to hear. Thank you for being part of that chorus.
“Where women reached around a 30% reduction in coronary heart disease at roughly 250 minutes of weekly MVPA, men needed more than 500 minutes for a comparable benefit.”
So we all need substantially more moderate to vigorous exercise ? Women less than men but substantially more than the long recommended 150 minutes ? Am I understanding this correctly ?
Indeed Katy. Your understanding is correct. The old 150-minute guideline was always meant as a broad minimum, not a personalised threshold. What this study now shows is that women reach strong cardiovascular benefit well above that baseline, but still far below the level that men need for the same effect. That's the nuance. So it’s not “everyone needs much more than 150 minutes now.” It’s: the female heart responds more efficiently to MVPA, and the gap between women and men is what exposes why the original “universal” rule was never truly universal. Does this clarify?
Food for thought - If this one guideline was wrong for decades, what does that tell us about the systems that shape women's health today?
What do you think needs to happen for public health guidelines to finally stop treating women as "variations" of men?
We need to be studied, nothing more. Just actually start to study us, separately!
Absolutely and what’s striking is how low the bar is.
So much of this isn’t about new technology or breakthroughs, it’s about finally designing studies that include women as women, not as statistical noise.
I use my autism diagnosis as a baseline example - it took 48 years to get the diagnosis that made my entire life make sense. And that’s something that actually presents. I feel like as I age, we women at least start talking among ourselves, first it was miscarriage now it’s menopause. But it’s us being affected that drives the discussion, not yet the monies that fund the right research!
Exactly Liz and your story exposes the real flaw in the system.
Women aren’t hard to diagnose; we’re hard to diagnose when the data is built on male baselines!. The delay isn’t in women’s bodies. It’s in the research that never centered them. And until that changes, women’s lived experiences just keep revealing the gaps long before the science catches up.
Exactly! Keep sharing the information you can so the rest of us can share among our communities.
Love that so much, Liz. 💛
This is exactly where advocacy starts for me. We turn our own stories into signal, then keep amplifying them until researchers, funders, and policymakers can’t not to hear. Thank you for being part of that chorus.
“Where women reached around a 30% reduction in coronary heart disease at roughly 250 minutes of weekly MVPA, men needed more than 500 minutes for a comparable benefit.”
So we all need substantially more moderate to vigorous exercise ? Women less than men but substantially more than the long recommended 150 minutes ? Am I understanding this correctly ?
Indeed Katy. Your understanding is correct. The old 150-minute guideline was always meant as a broad minimum, not a personalised threshold. What this study now shows is that women reach strong cardiovascular benefit well above that baseline, but still far below the level that men need for the same effect. That's the nuance. So it’s not “everyone needs much more than 150 minutes now.” It’s: the female heart responds more efficiently to MVPA, and the gap between women and men is what exposes why the original “universal” rule was never truly universal. Does this clarify?
It does ! Thank you
you are most welcome, thank you for being here!
Maryann - This is so important. I have restacked and shared on LinkedIn. Do you have a link to the study?
Thank you so much Sheila for sharing! The link is in the references section of this post. It’s the first article listed.
what part is confusing Katy? Maybe I can explain