Associations between life's simple 7 and incident depression among adults aged 50 years and older: A 15-year cohort study

Abstract

This study aimed to examine association of Life's Simple 7 (LS7), an estimation of cardiovascular health status, with depression and the modification by genetic risk. Longitudinal analysis was conducted on participants aged 50 years and older in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) (Waves 2 to 9). Cardiovascular health status was assessed by the LS7 which contains four health behaviors and three biological metrics. Depression was measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D). Associations of LS7 and its components with incident depression were estimated with Cox regression model adjusting for multiple covariates. Among 3231 participants, higher LS7 scores were associated with decreased risks of incident depression. Improvements in healthy behaviors (BMI, smoking, and physical activity) and blood glucose status presented inverse associations with depression. However, increased risk of depression was found among participants who had a better control of total cholesterol. In addition, the LS7-depression association was stronger among participants with high genetic risk compared to those with low genetic risk. Our findings indicated that favorable cardiovascular health, especially healthy behaviors, were associated with lower risk of depression. Higher LS7 scores were inversely associated with depression, especially among participants with high genetic risk.