Scientists from the American Heart Association found that about 80% of people in the U.S. have low to moderate heart health based on the American Heart Association’s new Life’s Essential 8 checklist.
The research is published in Circulation and was conducted by Donald M. Lloyd-Jones et al.
Life’s Essential 8 details the Association’s updated guidance to measure cardiovascular health, adding healthy sleep as essential for ideal heart and brain health.
The Life’s Essential 8 metrics are incorporated into the Association’s My Life Check tool to determine a heart health score based on eight essential components for ideal heart and brain health:
Diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep duration, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure.
In adults, overall cardiovascular health is calculated for each individual by summing the scores for each of the 8 metrics together and dividing the total by 8, to provide a Life’s Essential 8 score ranging from 0-100.
Thus, the highest or healthiest heart health score possible is 100. Overall scores below 50 indicate “low” heart health, 50-79 is considered “moderate” and scores of 80 and above indicate “high” heart health.
In the study, the team examined more than 23,400 U.S. adults and children free of heart disease.
The overall cardiovascular health of the U.S. population is well below ideal, with 80% of adults scoring at a low or moderate level.
The average cardiovascular health score based on Life’s Essential 8 was 64.7 for U.S. adults and 65.5 for U.S. children. Only 0.45% of adults scored 100 on Life’s Essential 8.
19.6% of U.S. adults had high cardiovascular health; 62.5% had moderate, and 17.9% were low.
Adult women had higher average cardiovascular health scores, of 67, compared to men, with a score of 62.5.
In general, U.S. adults scored lowest in the areas of diet, physical activity, and BMI. Cardiovascular health scores were generally lower at older ages.
The team says the heart health of the U.S. population is suboptimal, and they see important differences across age and sociodemographic groups.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how COVID affects the heart, and this combo therapy can cut the risk of heart attack and stroke by half.
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