Average life expectancy has increased substantially in recent decades in most industrialized countries. However, the whole increase in life expectancy is being spent on optimal health, especially among people with a low socioeconomic level.
Now, according to a study that has just been published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a high level of cardiovascular health is associated with a greater hope of life free of important chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular diseases.
Xuan Wang, team specialist at the University of Tulane in New Orleans, and his colleagues quantified the associations between the levels of CVH estimated by the Life’s Essential 8 metric of the American Heart Association with life expectancy free of major chronic diseases (disease cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and dementia) in a cohort study that included 135,199 adults drawn from the UK Biobank database. The data analysis took place last August.
Despite the general improvement in cardiovascular mortality, the proportion of young adults, for example, who experience cardiovascular events has increased. Previous studies have shown that the prevalence of ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) among younger people is abysmally low. In addition to the traditional risk factors of cardiovascular disease, bad sleep health has been associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular mortality
Cardiovascular health levels, estimated by the LE8 score, consist of 8 components: diet, physical activity, tobacco/nicotine exposure, sweat, body mass index, non-high density lipoproteins or cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure. The CVH level was evaluated at the beginning and classified in low levels (LE8 score <50), moderate (LE8 score ≥50 but <80) and high levels (LE8 score ≥80). 4 major chronic illnesses (CVS, diabetes, cancer and dementia).
The researchers found that the estimated disease-free years at age 50 were 21.5%, 25.5% and 28.4% at low, moderate and high levels of CVH, respectively, for men. In both the values of 24.2%, 30.5% and 33.6%, respectively, were detected for women in each of the states of cardiovascular health.
On average, men with moderate or high CVH lived 4.0 or 6.9 years more free of chronic illnesses, respectively, according to records taken at the age of 50 years, compared to men with low CVH. For women, the corresponding longer years free of chronic illnesses were 6.3 and 9.4. No statistically significant differences were observed in disease-free life expectancy among participants with low socioeconomic status and others among participants with high CVH.
”These hallazgos support the improvement in the health of the population by promoting high levels of CVH, which can also reduce the health disparities associated with the socioeconomic level. In this study of cohorts, a high level of CVH, evaluated with the LE8 metric, was associated with a greater life expectancy free of important chronic illnesses and can contribute to reducing socioeconomic inequalities in health both in men and in women”, concluded Xuan Wang.
In 2010, the American Heart Association introduced the concept of ideal CVH to improve health at the individual and public level through an emphasis on primary prevention and introduced the Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) score for the measurement of CVH. The 2022 AHA Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) score improves the existing framework established by the LS7 to optimize the methods through which 7 different components (physical activity, blood glucose, blood lipids, blood pressure, smoking, body mass index and diet) impact on health, in addition to adding sleep as a new CVH determinant.
The LE8 score is carried out on a scale from 0 to 100, which makes it easier to understand, improves the quantification of CVH in an individual and increases the sensitivity of measuring changes over time at an individual and population level. (Source; Infobae)
