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. 2023 Sep 14;21(1):622.
doi: 10.1186/s12967-023-04495-8.

Association between life's essential 8 and biological ageing among US adults

Ronghuai Zhang  1 , Min Wu  2 , Wei Zhang  1 , Xuna Liu  3 , Jie Pu  1 , Tao Wei  1   4 , Zhanfang Zhu  5 , Zhiguo Tang  1 , Na Wei  1 , Bo Liu  1 , Qianwei Cui  1 , Junkui Wang  1 , Fuqiang Liu  1 , Ying Lv  6
Affiliations

Association between life's essential 8 and biological ageing among US adults

Ronghuai Zhang et al. J Transl Med. .

Abstract

Background: Biological ageing is tightly linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD). We aimed to investigate the relationship between Life's Essential 8 (LE8), a currently updated measure of cardiovascular health (CVH), and biological ageing.

Methods: This cross-sectional study selected adults ≥ 20 years of age from the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. LE8 scores (range 0-100) were obtained from measurements based on American Heart Association definitions, divided into health behavior and health factor scores. Biological ageing was assessed by different methods including phenotypic age, phenotypic age acceleration (PhenoAgeAccel), biological age and biological age acceleration (BioAgeAccel). Correlations were analyzed by weighted linear regression and restricted cubic spline models.

Results: Of the 11,729 participants included, the mean age was 47.41 ± 0.36 years and 5983 (51.01%) were female. The mean phenotypic and biological ages were 42.96 ± 0.41 and 46.75 ± 0.39 years, respectively, and the mean LE8 score was 67.71 ± 0.35. After adjusting for potential confounders, higher LE8 scores were associated with lower phenotypic age, biological age, PhenoAgeAccel, and BioAgeAccel, with nonlinear dose-response relationships. Negative associations were also found between health behavior and health factor scores and biological ageing, and were stronger for health factors. In health factor-specific analyses, the β negativity was greater for blood glucose and blood pressure. The inverse correlations of LE8 scores with phenotypic age and biological age in the stratified analyses remained solid across strata.

Conclusions: LE8 and its subscale scores were strongly negatively related to biological ageing. Encouraging optimal CVH levels may be advantageous in preventing and slowing down ageing.

Keywords: Biological Ageing; Cardiovascular Health; Life’s Essential 8; NHANES.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Stratified analyses on phenotypic age and biological age and LE8. *The analysis adjusted for age, sex, race, marital status, education, poverty-income ratio, alcohol using, hypertension, CVD, diabetes, and cancer. LE8, Life’s Essential 8
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Analysis of Restricted Cubic Spline Regression. *Model adjusted for age, sex, race, marital status, education, poverty-income ratio, alcohol using, hypertension, CVD, diabetes, and cancer. LE8, Life’s Essential 8
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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