Association of Cardiovascular Health With Risk of Incident Depression and Anxiety

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association between cardiovascular health (CVH), defined by the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 (LE8) score, and incident depression and anxiety.

Design: A prospective cohort study using data from UK Biobank.

Setting: Participants were enrolled from March 2006 to October 2010.

Participants: Participants without cardiovascular diseases and common mental disorders at baseline and having complete data on metrics of LE8 were included.

Measurements: CVH was assessed by LE8 score including eight components. The overall CVH was categorized as low (LE8 score <50), moderate (50≤ LE8 score <80), and high (LE8 score ≥80).

Results: We included 115,855 participants (mean age: 55.7 years; female: 52.6%). During a median follow-up of 12.4 years, 3,194 (2.8%) and 4,005 (3.5%) participants had incident depression and anxiety, respectively. Compared with participants having low CVH, those having moderate and high CVH had 37% (HR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.57-0.70) and 52% (HR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.41-0.55) lower risk of incident depression. Similarly, moderate and high CVH were related to a lower risk of incident anxiety (HR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.73-0.89 and HR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.60-0.78). Restricted cubic spline showed that LE8 score was inversely related to incident depression and anxiety in a linear manner, and the risk of incident depression and anxiety decreased by 17% (HR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.80-0.85) and 10% (HR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.88-0.92) for 10-point increment in LE8 score, respectively.

Conclusions: Higher CVH, evaluated by LE8 score, is strongly associated with a lower risk of incident depression and anxiety, suggesting the significance of optimizing CVH by adopting LE8.

Keywords: Cardiovascular health; anxiety; depression; life's essential 8; mental health.