Association between the American Heart Association's new "Life's Essential 8" metrics and kidney stone

Area of Science:

• Nephrology
• Cardiology
• Public Health

Background:

• Kidney stone disease incidence is rising globally, imposing significant medical and social costs.
• Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) share risk factors with kidney stones, suggesting a potential link.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between cardiovascular health (CVH), assessed by the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 (LE8) score, and the incidence of kidney stone disease.
• To determine if better CVH correlates with a reduced risk of kidney stone formation.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 29,469 US adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2018).
• Categorization of participants into poor, intermediate, and ideal CVH groups based on LE8 scores.
• Logistic regression models were employed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for kidney stone incidence across CVH categories.

Main Results:

• Ideal CVH was significantly associated with reduced odds of kidney stone occurrence compared to poor CVH (adjusted OR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.35-0.57).
• Achieving 6 or more ideal CVH metrics further decreased the odds of kidney stone occurrence by up to 61% (adjusted OR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.30-0.51).

Conclusions:

• Ideal cardiovascular health, reflecting a healthy lifestyle, is inversely associated with the odds of developing kidney stone disease.
• Promoting ideal CVH may be a strategy to mitigate the risk and burden of kidney stone disease.