Benefits of Exercise Differ by Sex and Race

More news stories on Racial Differences

Reuters, September 6, 2009

How much health benefit you get from physical exercise might depend on your gender, and your race, new research suggests.

The work is based on data from more than 15,000 middle-aged African American and Caucasian men and women who have been participating since the late 1980s in the large Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

According to a report in the Journal of Lipid Research, people who added about an hour of mild exercise per week or half an hour of moderate exercise had increased levels of heart-healthy HDL.

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The research team, led by Dr. Keri Monda at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, also found that increased exercise generally produced significant decreases in harmful triglycerides, but only in Caucasians.

Similar beneficial effects of exercise on HDL cholesterol and triglycerides have been found in other studies.

Monda’s team also discovered, however, that increased activity improved levels of artery-clogging LDL cholesterol in women, but not in men. Also, they found, added exercise brought total cholesterol levels down, but only in Black women.

These variations in response, the research team says, “are for the most part” new.

What’s behind these differences? The researchers aren’t sure, but they speculate that hormonal differences between men and women and genetic differences between races account for at least some of their findings.

{snip}

[Editor’s Note: “Longitudinal impact of physical activity on lipid profiles in middle-aged adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study,” by Keri L. Monda1, Christie M. Ballantyne and Kari E. Northcan can be read on-line or downloaded as a PDF file here (scroll down). There is a charge. The abstract is available here.]

Original article

(Posted on September 8, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Anonymous wrote at 8:59 PM on September 8:

As a woman, I’ve seen that men seem to lose weight faster. So unfair!!!!

2 — Tim in Indiana wrote at 9:23 PM on September 8:

African American and Caucasian

Note the lack of label parity. African American vs. Caucasian. Perhaps researchers think they can sneak that past us and sound scholarly at the same time, since they’re both overly long-winded terms, but they’re not equal. African American is a pompous, self-aggrandizing term mandated by Jesse Jackson; Caucasian sounds cold and clinical. Nowadays, in order to avoid putting blacks down you apparently have to use unequal terminology to describe them.

3 — q wrote at 12:12 AM on September 9:

“What’s behind these differences? The researchers aren’t sure, but they speculate that hormonal differences between men and women and genetic differences between races account for at least some of their findings.”

However, they concluded that blacks and women would have done FAR better on the tests if it wasn’t for racism and sexism.

Next weak they’ll be doing work equally as important. They’ll be conducting a 2 billion dollar study on the sex life of the French snail.

4 — Whiteplight wrote at 1:47 AM on September 9:

1 — Anonymous wrote at 8:59 PM on September 8:

As a woman, I’ve seen that men seem to lose weight faster. So unfair!!!!

If you are joking, you ought to indicate so. Otherwise, I have to ask, what do you suggest is the way to equalize nature’s design? Something political?

5 — Anonymous wrote at 3:00 AM on September 9:

You mean to tell me that race is more than just skin deep?

6 — NWG wrote at 11:22 AM on September 9:

http://nonwhiteguilt.blogspot.com/

I think it is only fair that I return the favor to you Whites, who have been nothing but kind to me in my life.

7 — Anonymous wrote at 8:46 PM on September 9:

“If you are joking, you ought to indicate so. Otherwise, I have to ask, what do you suggest is the way to equalize nature’s design? Something political?”

Partly joking, partly not. There is nothing one can do about this politically of course as it’s just nature. I’m just saying nature is unfair sometimes!!!!

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