The pandemic has taught us many lessons, one of the most important ones being the benefits of regular exercise. However, while exercising is beneficial to everyone, new studies reveal that it is especially more effective for women and people who are already-fit. This means that unfit people who need to burn the calories the most burn them slower than the fit people who don’t have too much of it in the first place.
The study was conducted by University of Bath researchers, United Kingdom, and incorporated two constituent studies. Both studies aimed to determine if the burning of fat during exercise was uniform across the genders or the process was dependent on other factors.
Women are at an advantage
For the first study, researchers examined 32 women aged 19 to 63 and 41 men. They were put in a cycling fitness test while the researchers tried to study their biological and lifestyle factors and linked them to the test.
The results revealed that women and healthy people burned fat more effectively than their peers in the same test. Surprisingly, the age of the participants did not affect their rate of burning fat.
In the second test, the researchers got a bit more technical. They harvested biopsies from the participants to determine if the protein compositions in their muscles played a role in how efficiently they burnt fat. The results proved that the proteins break down the fat into fatty acids and further showed that the proteins that transport the fatty acids to muscle mitochondria are more capable of burning fat.
However, the study failed to explain why female muscles are better at burning fat. Study author Ollie Chrzanowski explains in a university release that unlocking the puzzle of why women’s bodies are better at burning fat is imperative. Chrzanowski adds that it could also explain why women have an advantage in insulin sensitivity.
Burning fat is not weight loss
It is, however, essential to note that although the study proves that women and healthy people are better at burning fat during exercise, this does not translate to weight loss. Weight loss is about energy balance, so it goes beyond burning calories into eating healthy and resting.
