Cardiovascular health (CVH) among adults in the US in the 2015-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was associated with a lower phenotypic age and lower phenotypic age acceleration, according to recent research from the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.

“CVH is inversely associated with [phenotypic age] and [phenotypic age acceleration] with evidence of a dose-response relation. Improving CVH may decelerate biological aging and reduce associated morbidity,” Rahul Hosalli, graduate student research assistant in the department of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and colleagues wrote in their study abstract.

Hosalli and colleagues analyzed 6,593 participants from the survey who were mean 47 years old in a cohort that consisted of 50% women, 64% White, 16% Hispanic, 10% Black, and 6% Asian participants. The researchers used the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) framework to calculate overall and component CVH scores, while phenotypic age was calculated with biological age and nine biomarkers. To obtain phenotypic age acceleration, researchers calculated the difference between phenotypic age and chronological age. Researchers noted that phenotypic age is a “biomarker-based biological aging measure” for morbidity and mortality risk.

The results showed an inverse association between CVH and phenotypic age acceleration, with participants who had high CVH also having negative phenotypic age acceleration and low CVH having positive phenotypic age acceleration (-4.2 vs 2.36; P < .01). When the LE8 framework score was increased by 10 units, there was an associated lowering of phenotypic age (-4.82; 95% CI, -5.28 to -4.36) and phenotypic age acceleration (-1.8; 95% CI, -1.98 to -1.62). Compared with participants who had a low overall LE8 framework score, those who had a high overall score had significantly lower phenotypic age (-17.15; 95% CI, -18.98 to -15.33) and phenotypic age acceleration (-6.08; 95% CI, -6.76 to - 5.41) (P-trend for all < .001).

Compared with those who had the lowest LE8 score, participants who had the highest scores had negative phenotypic age in the areas of diet (1.88; 95% CI, 0.13 to 3.63; P-trend = .036), physical activity (-8.96; 95% CI, -10.78 to -7.15; P-trend < .001), BMI (-6.98; 95% CI, -8.75 to -5.21; P-trend < .001), glucose (-13.32; 95% CI, -15.19 to -11.46; P-trend < .001), blood lipids (-25.5; 95% CI, -27.44 to -23.56; P-trend < .001), and blood pressure (-22.98; 95% CI, -24.93 to -21.02; P-trend < .001).

Participants with high LE8 scores had negative phenotypic age acceleration compared with participants who had low scores in the areas of diet (-1.67; 95% CI, -2.33 to -1.0; P-trend < .001), physical activity (-2.60; 95% CI, -3.17 to -2.03; P-trend < .001), nicotine exposure (-1.75; 95% CI, -2.29 to -1.20; P-trend < .001), sleep health (-0.91; 95% CI, -1.52 to -0.29; P-trend = .005), BMI (-6.18; 95% CI, -6.79 to -5.57; P-trend < .001), glucose (-1.64; 95% CI, -2.3 to -0.99; P-trend < .001), blood lipids (-9.56; 95% CI, -10.54 to -8.58; P-trend < .001), and blood pressure (-3.75; 95% CI, -4.62 to -2.88) P-trend < .001).

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Disclosures: No authors declared financial ties to drugmakers.

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