Association of Cardiovascular Health Assessed by the New Life's Essential 8 Metrics With Years Lived Without Cardiovascular Disease

BACKGROUND: The American Heart Association recently proposed an updated definition of cardiovascular health (CVH) named as Life's Essential 8. We aimed to explore the association between this latest published CVH measurement and years lived without cardiovascular disease (CVD) among the Chinese population. METHODS AND RESULTS: We included 89 755 adults free of CVD at baseline from the Kailuan study. The CVH of each participant was scored (from 0 point to 100 points) and classified (low [0–49 points], moderate [50–79 points], and high [80–100 points]) according to Life's Essential 8, which incorporated 8 components covering health behaviors and health factors. Incident CVD was documented through follow‐ups from baseline (June 2006 to October 2007) until December 31, 2020. CVD‐free life years from age 30 to 80 years associated with different CVH scores were estimated using flexible parametric survival models. A total of 9977 incident CVDs were recorded. We observed a gradient relationship between CVH score and years lived without CVD. The age‐ and sex‐adjusted CVD‐free life years (95% CI) were 40.7 (40.3–41.0) years for low CVH, 43.3 (43.0–43.5) years for moderate CVH, and 45.5 (45.1–45.9) years for high CVH. Similar trends were noted when individual subtypes of CVD were investigated, and high CVH evaluated by health behaviors and health factors was also related to longer CVD‐free life years. CONCLUSIONS: A higher CVH evaluated by the updated Life's Essential 8 metrics was significantly associated with a greater number of life years without CVD, indicating the importance of promoting CVH for healthy aging in China.