Association of Life's Essential 8 With Incident Cardiovascular Disease Among Individuals With Depression: A Prospective Study

Background: Depression is an increasing illness worldwide that severely diminishes the quality of life. In this study we sought to elucidate the association of the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 (LE8) metrics with the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among depression participants and further quantify the related theoretical reduction of long-term CVD burden. Methods: We included 20,832 participants with depression from the UK Biobank. LE8, including diet quality, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep duration, body mass index, lipids, glucose, and blood pressure, was calculated at baseline and categorized into low, medium, and high levels. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for major cardiovascular events (MACE) were calculated using Cox models. We further quantified the population-attributable fraction (PAF) for CVD. Results: During a median follow-up of 12.0 years, 658 MACE were recorded. After multi-variable adjustment, compared with participants with low LE8, people with high LE8 had a decreased risk of MACE (HR,0.32; 95% CI, 0.22-0.47), non-fatal MACE (HR, 0.39, 0.26-0.61), myocardial infarction (HR, 0.23, 0.12-0.44), and ischemic stroke (HR, 0.52, 0.27-0.99). Overall 50.7% (95% CI, 34.5%-66.9%) of MACE and 48.0% (95% CI, 29.5%-66.4%) of nonfatal MACE were attributable to the low and medium adherence to LE8 at the 5-year follow-up, respectively. Suboptimal control of blood pressure ranked as the top contributor to all types of CVD in individuals with depression. Conclusions: Optimal adherence to LE8 was associated with lower burden of CVD in those with depression. Adopting a comprehensive lifestyle intervention might help further reduce CVD burden in those with mental disorders.