Dose-response associations of the American Heart Association's new “Life's essential 8” metrics with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a nationally representative sample from the United States

Background

Our aim was to examine the prospective dose-response associations of American Heart Association's (AHA) LIFE's Essential 8 (LE8) score and number of cardiovascular health (CVH) factors with high score with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) related mortality.

Methods

We pooled 6 consecutive waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) comprising rounds between 2007 and 2008 and 2017–2018. We calculated hazard ratios (HRs) and conducted restricted cubic splines models to assess the dose-response association of LE8 score and CVH factors with all-cause and CVD mortality.

Results

Analyses included 23,531 adults aged 18 years and over (mean [SD] age, 43.6 [16.7] years; 11,979 [51%] female; 8960 [38.1%] non-Hispanic white individuals) with a median follow-up of 7.3 years (IQR 4.3–10.1), corresponding to 168,033 person-years.

The dose-response analyses showed a significant inverse curvilinear trend for the association between LE8 score with all-cause and CVD mortality. The optimal risk reduction for all-cause mortality was found at 100 points of the LE8 Score (HR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.27–0.93) compared to the reference (median LE8 score [62.5 points]). Moreover, the dose-response association between LE8 and CVD mortality also exhibited a significant inverse curvilinear association up to 90 points (HR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.17–0.99). Optimal levels of LE8 score may be able to avert around 40% of the annual all-cause and CVD deaths among the US adult population.

Conclusions

Best-case scenario of CVH may reduce around 40% of the all-cause and CVD annual mortality among adults in the United States.