Lectures and seminars Gender equality universally linked to physical capacity

Speaker: Nicolas Pillon

About the speaker

Nicolas Pillon is a docent and research team leader at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet. His research focuses on understanding how the immune system regulates skeletal muscle metabolism and adaptation to exercise, inactivity, and metabolic disease. 

Nicolas earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Lyon, France, in 2011. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, where he explored immune–metabolic cross-talk in muscle cells. Since joining Karolinska Institutet in 2015, he has received several distinctions, including a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (2016) and the EFSD/Novo Nordisk Foundation Future Leaders Award (2021).

As an educator, Nicolas contributes extensively to physiology and biomedical teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels and serves as Deputy Director of Education at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. 

Seminar description

Nicolas will present a new global systematic review by Karolinska Institutet and Shanghai University of Sport, published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science, revealing that cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) among young adults varies significantly across countries and is strongly linked to both socioeconomic development and gender equality. Analyzing data from 95 studies in 24 countries with over 119,000 participants, the researchers found that higher Human Development Index (HDI) and lower Gender Inequality Index (GII) correlate with better physical capacity, measured by VO₂peak. The effect is most pronounced among women: those in highly gender-equal societies had an average VO₂peak 6.5 mL/kg/min higher than peers in less equal contexts. These findings underscore the role of societal structures in shaping access to exercise and fitness, highlighting the need for policies that reduce social and gender barriers to physical activity and further research in low-HDI regions.
 

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https://ki-se.zoom.us/j/3986631330

Meeting ID: 398 663 1330

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Meeting ID: 398 663 1330

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