Cumulative Life's Essential 8 Scores and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Most literature on the association between cardiovascular health (CVH) and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality has relied on single midlife measurements. Understanding how cumulative CVH over time influences later-life CVD and mortality may aid early prevention.

To determine whether cumulative CVH, as measured by the American Heart Association Life's Essential 8 (LE8) from age 18 to 45 years, is associated with incident CVD and mortality in midlife.

This cohort study, the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, collected CVH data for participants from 4 US centers from 1985 to 2020. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models assessed the associations of (1) cumulative LE8 score by quartile, (2) cumulative LE8 score and score at age 45 years, and (3) cumulative LE8 score and LE8 score slope from age 18 to 45 years with incident CVD and mortality after age 45 years.

Incident CVD and all-cause mortality. Cumulative LE8 score was calculated as the area under the curve of the LE8 score (0-100, higher is better CVH) over time from age 18 to 45 years.

There were 4832 CARDIA participants (2690 [55.7%] female and 2142 [44.3%] male) with a mean (SD) cumulative LE8 score from age 18 to 45 years of 2018.8 (95.0) point × years. Compared with quartile 1 (Q1, ie, lowest CVH), Q2, Q3, and Q4 had significantly lower hazards for CVD (Q2 HR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.32-0.61; Q3 HR, 0.26; 95% CI, 0.18-0.38; Q4 HR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.07-0.21) and mortality (Q2 HR, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.36-0.71; Q3 HR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.26-0.55; Q4 HR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.18-0.45) after age 45 years. When cumulative LE8 score from age 18 to 45 years and LE8 score at age 45 years were in the model together, both were significantly associated with lower risk for CVD. Likewise, both cumulative LE8 score and positive slope of (improving) LE8 score from age 18 to 45 years were significantly associated with lower hazards for incident CVD after age 45 years.

Greater cumulative CVH and improvement in CVH during young adulthood, as well as better CVH in middle age, were all independently associated with lower risk for incident CVD in midlife. These results emphasize the importance of maintaining and improving CVH throughout young adulthood.