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Purpose: The American Heart Association recently issued a substantial update to the definition and scoring of cardiovascular health (CVH), now called "Life's Essential 8" (LE8). We aimed to assess the trends in overall and individual LE8 CVH metrics among adolescents in the United States., Methods: A total of 6,999 United States adolescents aged 12-19 years from six cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2007-2008 to 2017-2018 were included in this study. The individual LE8 metrics included diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body mass index (BMI), blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure (BP). A higher CVH score indicates better CVH health., Results: The mean score of overall CVH significantly increased from 72.8 (95% confidence interval: 71.2-74.3) in 2007-2008 to 77.3 (76.1-78.5) in 2017-2018 in US adolescents (p-trend < .001). From 2007-2008 to 2017-2018, the mean scores increased from 75.5 (72.0-79.1) to 90.0 (88.0-91.9) for nicotine exposure, from 65.2 (61.6-68.8) to 73.3 (69.9-76.8) for sleep health, from 69.9 (67.1-72.8) to 73.0 (69.1-76.9) for blood lipids, and from 94.4 (93.0-95.9) to 96.2 (95.2-97.3) for BP (all p-trend < .05). However, the mean scores for diet, physical activity, and blood glucose did not significantly change (all p-trend > .05), whereas the mean score decreased from 81.4 (78.9-84.0) to 78.6 (76.4-80.8) for BMI (p-trend = .023)., Discussion: In United States adolescents, the overall CVH and four components (nicotine exposure, sleep health, blood lipids, and BP) significantly improved over time, diet, physical activity, and blood glucose remained unchanged, whereas BMI worsened., (Copyright © 2024 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The recently published "Life's Essential 8" (LE8) by the American Heart Association has overcome some limitations in evaluating cardiovascular health (CVH) in the previous "Life's Simple 7.", Objective: We aimed to examine the secular trends in CVH, as assessed by the LE8, in US adults from 2005 to 2018., Methods: Using cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2005-2006 and 2017-2018, we calculated the age-standardized mean scores of overall CVH and each of the LE8 components, where a higher score (range 0-100 points) means a better health status. A total of 21,667 adults aged 20-79 years were included in this analysis., Results: The overall CVH did not significantly change between 2005-2006 and 2017-2018 (65.5, 95% CI 63.9-67.1 to 65.0, 95% CI 62.8-67.1; P=.82). The individual metrics did not significantly change for diet (41.0, 95% CI 38.0-43.9 to 41.5, 95% CI 36.5-46.6; P=.94), physical activity (57.5, 95% CI 53.0-61.9 to 53.0, 95% CI 48.7-57.3; P=.26), and blood pressure (68.4, 95% CI 65.2-71.5 to 68.6, 95% CI 65.3-71.9, P=.35), improved for nicotine exposure (64.7, 95% CI 61.1-68.4 to 71.9, 95% CI 67.7-76.2; P<.001), sleep health (83.7, 95% CI 81.6-85.7 to 84.1, 95% CI 81.2-87.1; P=.006), and blood lipids (61.6, 95% CI 59.1-64.0 to 67.0, 95% CI 63.5-70.4; P<.001), and worsened for BMI (63.4, 95% CI 59.7-67.1 to 56.2, 95% CI 52.5-59.9; P<.001) and blood glucose (83.9, 95% CI 82.4-85.4 to 77.4, 95% CI 74.5-80.3; P<.001)., Conclusions: According to the LE8, the overall CVH did not change among US adults from 2005 to 2018, as well as 3 components (diet, physical activity, and blood pressure). Other metrics such as nicotine exposure, blood lipids, and sleep health improved, while BMI and blood glucose deteriorated over time., (©Cheng Li, Yanzhi Li, Min Zhao, Cheng Zhang, Pascal Bovet, Bo Xi. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 08.05.2023.)

Background: The American Heart Association recently updated its construct of what constitutes cardiovascular health (CVH), called Life's Essential 8. We examined the association of total and individual CVH metrics according to Life's Essential 8 with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-specific mortality later in  life., Methods: Data were from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2018 at baseline linked to the 2019 National Death Index records. Total and individual CVH metric scores including diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure were classified as 0-49 (low level), 50-74 (intermediate level), and 75-100 (high level) points. The total CVH metric score (the average of the 8 metrics) as a continuous variable was also used for dose-response analysis. The main outcomes included all-cause and CVD-specific mortality., Results: A total of 19,951 US adults aged 30-79 years were included in this study. Only 19.5% of adults achieved a high total CVH score, whereas 24.1% had a low score. During a median follow-up of 7.6 years, compared with adults with a low total CVH score, those with an intermediate or high total CVH score had 40% (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 0.60, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.51-0.71) and 58% (adjusted HR 0.42, 95% CI 0.32-0.56) reduced risk of all-cause mortality. The corresponding adjusted HRs (95%CIs) were 0.62 (0.46-0.83) and 0.36 (0.21-0.59) for CVD-specific mortality. The population-attributable fractions for high (score ≥ 75 points) vs. low or intermediate (score < 75 points) CVH scores were 33.4% for all-cause mortality and 42.9% for CVD-specific mortality. Among all 8 individual CVH metrics, physical activity, nicotine exposure, and diet accounted for a large proportion of the population-attributable risks for all-cause mortality, whereas physical activity, blood pressure, and blood glucose accounted for a large proportion of CVD-specific mortality. There were approximately linear dose-response associations of total CVH score (as a continuous variable) with all-cause and CVD-specific mortality., Conclusions: Achieving a higher CVH score according to the new Life's Essential 8 was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause and CVD-specific mortality. Public health and healthcare efforts targeting the promotion of higher CVH scores could provide considerable benefits to reduce the mortality burden later in life., (© 2023. The Author(s).)