Ideal cardiovascular health and incident cardiovascular disease among adults
Recently, Jose M. Saavedra and his colleagues have been published an interesting paper in the prestigious journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. This journal has an Impact factor of 7.199 and it is ranked in 11th place out of 154 journals (Medicine General & Internal) Science Edition-2017 Journal Citation Reports. The objective of this paper to investigate the association between ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) metrics and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. The MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases were searched from January 1, 2010 through July 31, 2017, for studies that met the following criteria: (1) prospective studies conducted in adults, (2) with outcome data on CVD incidence and (3) a measure of ideal CVH metrics. Twelve studies (210,443 adults) were included in this analysis. Compared with adults who met 0 to 2 of the ideal CVH metrics (high-risk individuals), a significantly lower hazard for CVD incidence was observed in those who had 3 to 4 points for the ideal CVH metrics (hazard ratio [HR]¼0.53; 95% CI, 0.47-0.59) and 5 to 7 points (HR¼0.28; 95% CI, 0.23-0.33). Weaker associations were observed in studies with older individuals, suggesting that there is a positive relationship between age and HR. Although meeting 5 to 7 metrics is associated with the lowest hazard for CVD incidence, meeting 3 to 4 metrics still offers an important protective effect for CVD. Therefore, a realistic goal in the general population in the short term could be to promote at least an intermediate ideal CVH profile