Community‐Based Evaluation of the Associations Between Well‐Being and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

BACKGROUND: Although the effects of psychological health and optimism have been extensively investigated, data from community‐based cohorts assessing the association between psychological health and cardiovascular disease risk factors are sparse, and the concurrent relationship between subjective well‐being and cardiovascular health has not been studied. METHODS AND RESULTS: The current cross‐sectional study examined the association between well‐being and cardiovascular risk factors among 719 individuals living in a middle‐ to low‐income neighborhood. After adjusting for age, sex, race, body mass index, education, smoking status, and exercise status, we found that higher levels of well‐being were significantly associated with lower odds of dyslipidemia (odds ratio [OR], 0.7 [95% CI, 0.55–0.85]) and hypertension (OR, 0.8 [95% CI, 0.63–0.92]). Greater well‐being was also significantly associated with lower triglyceride levels (mean difference [M(diff)], 7.6 [−14.31 to −0.78]), very low‐density lipoprotein (M(diff), 0.9 [−1.71 to −0.16]), total cholesterol to high‐density lipoprotein ratio (M(diff), 3.9 [−6.07 to −1.73]), higher high‐density lipoprotein levels (M(diff), 1.6 [0.46–2.75]), and lower Framingham Risk Scores (M(diff), −7.1% [−10.84% to −3.16%]). Well‐being also moderated the association between age and arterial stiffness. The strongest association between arterial stiffness and age was found for those with the lowest well‐being scores; there was no association between age and arterial stiffness at high levels of well‐being. CONCLUSIONS: In a community‐based cohort, individuals reporting higher levels of well‐being have lower odds of hypertension and dyslipidemia as well as lower rates of age‐dependent increase in vascular stiffness. REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT03670524.