National Trends in American Heart Association Revised Life's Simple 7 Metrics Associated With Risk of Mortality Among US Adults

Abstract

The American Heart Association (AHA) introduced the Life's Simple 7 (LS7) metrics to assess and promote cardiovascular health. However, several shortcomings of these metrics have been identified. Therefore, a revised set of LS7 metrics was developed. To evaluate national trends in the metrics addressed by the revised LS7 and the individual and combined associations of the revised LS7 metrics with all-cause and cause-specific mortality and to compare these measures with the AHA recommended LS7 metrics. This national cross-sectional study used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1988 to 2016. The revised LS7 metrics included a combination of the body mass index and waist to hip ratio, Healthy Eating Index-2010, and a lower blood pressure threshold of greater than or equal to 130/80 mm Hg in addition to physical activity, smoking, total cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose. Data for this study were analyzed from June 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. The secondary outcome was cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Data were available for 13 606 adults in 1988 to 1994 (7329 [53%] female; mean [SD] age, 47 [17.7] years), 6360 in 1999 to 2004 (3442 [54%] female; mean [SD] age, 47 [18.6] years), 10 618 in 2005 to 2010 (5428 [51%] female; mean [SD] age, 47 [17.5] years), and 10 773 in 2011 to 2016 (5474 [50%] female; mean [SD] age, 48 [17.4] years). Compared with a revised LS7 score of 0 to 1, the adjusted hazard ratios for a revised LS7 score of 5 to 7 were 0.46 (95% CI, 0.35-0.61) for all-cause mortality, 0.42 (95% CI, 0.25-0.68) for cancer mortality, and 0.37 (95% CI, 0.24-0.55) for CVD mortality, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratios for participants who met 6 or more AHA recommended ideal LS7 metrics were 0.49 (95% CI, 0.33-0.74) for all-cause mortality, 0.60 (95% CI, 0.29-1.25) for cancer mortality, and 0.24 (95% CI, 0.13-0.47) for CVD mortality. Participants with a body mass index of 29.9 or less but without central obesity were independently associated with lower risk of all-cause and CVD mortality. Blood pressure was associated with 36.7% or more of the observed population-attributable fraction of mortality. The individual revised LS7 metrics with modified criteria regarding weight, blood pressure, and diet provide more information about factors associated with cancer mortality than the original AHA LS7 metrics.