When male and female soldiers undergo the same intense military training for over 61 days with similar calorie deficits, men tend to lose more total body weight, while women preserve more muscle and...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
When men and women go through the same intense training with not enough food, women’s bodies hold onto muscle better because estrogen helps protect it and encourages fat burning, while men’s bodies break down more muscle for energy due to testosterone-driven metabolism — this is seen in the study...
Most probable mechanism
When men and women go through intense training with not enough food, women’s bodies maintain muscle better because their hormones, especially estrogen, help protect muscle from breaking down and encourage the body to use fat for energy instead — this is seen in studies where women kept more lean tissue even when both sexes were equally hungry (10.1249/mss.0000000000004013).
Estrogen levels in females modulate skeletal muscle protein breakdown rates during energy deficit, reducing ubiquitin-proteasome pathway activation and preserving fat-free mass (10.1249/mss.0000000000004013)
Androgen-dependent metabolic signaling in males promotes greater reliance on lean tissue as an energy substrate during prolonged energy deficit, accelerating fat-free mass loss (10.1249/mss.0000000000004013)
Sex-based differences in substrate utilization favor lipid oxidation in females and greater protein catabolism in males under matched negative energy balance, leading to divergent body composition outcomes (10.1249/mss.0000000000004013)
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Limited Sex Differences in Energy Balance and Body Composition during 61+D of US Army Ranger Training
Contradicting (0)
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Gold Standard Evidence Needed
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