Life's Essential 8 and Mortality in US Adults With Obesity: A Cohort Study

Objective: This study evaluates the relationship between the Life's Essential 8 (LE8) scoring system and all-cause and cause-specific mortality among obese individuals using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Methods: Data from 9143 obese participants (BMI >= 30 kg/m(2)) collected between 2005 and 2018 were analyzed. Participants were categorized based on their LE8 scores: low cardiovascular health (Low CVH, n = 2264), moderate cardiovascular health (Moderate CVH, n = 6541), and high cardiovascular health (High CVH, n = 338). Associations between LE8 scores and mortality were assessed using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards models. Results: Over a median follow-up of 7.3 years, there were 867 all-cause deaths (9.5%), including 246 cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths (2.7%) and 621 non-CVD deaths (6.8%). In multivariable Cox regression analysis, compared to the Low CVH group, the Moderate CVH group had an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality of 0.63 (95% CI: 0.55-0.72), and the High CVH group had an HR of 0.25 (95% CI: 0.10-0.60). For CVD mortality, the HRs were 0.61 (95% CI: 0.47-0.78) for Moderate CVH and 0.19 (95% CI: 0.03-1.38) for High CVH. For non-CVD mortality, the HRs were 0.64 (95% CI: 0.54-0.75) for Moderate CVH and 0.27 (95% CI: 0.10-0.72) for High CVH. Each 10-point increase in LE8 score was associated with a 20% reduction in all-cause mortality (P < .001), 21% reduction in CVD mortality (P < .001), and 20% reduction in non-CVD mortality (P < .001). Conclusion: Higher LE8 scores are significantly associated with lower rates of all-cause, CVD, and non-CVD mortality among obese individuals. These findings support the LE8 scoring system as an effective predictor of health status and mortality risk. (c) 2024 AACE. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://