Improving heart health habits may slow biological aging
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Key takeaways:
- Heart health assessed by the Life’s Essential 8 score is inversely associated with phenotypic age, a marker of the body’s aging rate.
- Improving CV health may decelerate biological aging and reduce morbidity.
PHILADELPHIA — Data presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions show that higher overall CV health as measured by the Life’s Essential 8 score is associated with lower biological age.
Phenotypic age, a new biomarker-based biological aging measure, captures morbidity and mortality risk in the general population; however, any associations between CV health as measured by the enhanced Life’s Essential 8 framework with phenotypic age and phenotypic age acceleration have not been evaluated, according to Nour Makarem, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center's Mailman School of Public Health.
“Improving heart health through healthy lifestyle change does not just lower the risk for developing CVD but can also slow down the rate of biological aging, which can increase the number of years of life lived in good health,” Makarem told Healio. “We observed a dose-response relationship, meaning that as CV health improves, biological aging slows down. Therefore, even gradual improvements in lifestyle behaviors — diet, sleep, physical activity and nicotine use — can be beneficial and any progress towards improving heart health is clinically meaningful.”
Makarem and colleagues analyzed data from 6,593 adults who participated in the 2015-2018 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The mean age of participants was 47 years; 50% were women; 65% were white and 10% were Black. The researchers calculated overall and component CV health scores using the Life’s Essential 8 framework and determined phenotypic age using nine biomarkers plus chronological age.
“Phenotypic age is a robust marker of the body's aging rate and is a strong predictor of future risk for chronic disease and mortality,” Makarem told Healio. “It is a measure of biological aging that can be readily captured from someone's chronological age and routine clinical chemistry biomarkers.”
Researchers also assessed phenotypic age acceleration, defined as the difference between phenotypic age and chronological age, with higher positive values indicating faster biological aging, and then evaluated the overall and component CV health scores in relation to phenotypic age and phenotypic age acceleration.
Researchers found that participants with high CV health had negative phenotypic age acceleration, whereas those with low CV health had positive phenotypic age acceleration (–4.2 vs. 2.36; P < .01). Each 10-unit increase in the Life’s Essential 8 score was associated with lower phenotypic age (beta = –4.82; 95% CI, –5.28 to –4.36) and lower phenotypic age acceleration (beta = –1.8; 95% CI, –1.98 to –1.62).
Those with high vs. low CV health had lower phenotypic age (beta = –17.15; 95% CI, –18.98 to –15.33) and phenotypic age acceleration (beta = –6.09; 95% CI, –6.76 to –5.41; P for trend < .001), according to the researchers.
The researchers also found that scores in the highest vs. lowest tertile of all Life’s Essential 8 metrics combined were associated with negative phenotypic age acceleration (P for trend < .01). Additionally, the highest tertile of scores for the physical activity, BMI, glucose, lipid and BP metrics of life’s essential 8 were associated with lower phenotypic age compared with the lowest tertile of scores in those categories (P for trend < .05).
“In particular, having a high Life's Essential 8 score was associated with decelerated biological aging while having a low Life's Essential 8 score was associated with accelerated biological aging,” Makarem told Healio. “Higher adherence to the recommendations for each of the Life's Essential 8 components was associated with decelerated biological aging. Improving CV health may decelerate biological aging and reduce associated morbidity.”
Makarem said longitudinal studies could better assess how changes in CV health across the life course influence the biological aging process over time.
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Hosalli R, et al. Abstract 475. Presented at: American Heart Association Scientific Sessions; Nov. 11-13, 2023; Philadelphia.
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