The American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) score is a health tool, ranging from 0 to 100, that quantifies cardiovascular health (CVH) using information from eight lifestyle and risk factors, (body mass index, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose, physical activity, diet, smoking, and sleep. It is well reported that maintaining a healthy heart helps to avoid developing heart disease and other disease outcomes, but most studies have reported associations using a single time point CVH score.

Using data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) spanning 25 years to calculate the cumulative burden of poor cardiovascular health from early to mid-adulthood, researchers observed that the average score for all participants was 65. They also found that higher cumulative LE8 scores (reflecting better CVH) are associated with lower risk of all disease outcomes; importantly, there was a striking 73% lower risk for CVD for participants at the highest quartile of cumulative LE8 compared to those at the lowest quartile (reflecting poor CVH).

Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine researchers Vanessa Xanthakis, PhD, FAHA, associate professor of medicine and director of research training, and Mathew Nayor, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine, have been awarded a five-year, T32 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. This is the second five-year renewal for the project, “Multidisciplinary Training Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology,” which began in 2016.