AHA launches life essential eight to promote cardiovascular health and slow biological aging

The American Heart Association (AHA) has created an index to measure one’s health. The Life Essential Eight is a checklist of lifestyle changes one can make to improve cardiovascular health, lower the risk of heart disease, and slow biological aging by six years. “We found that higher cardiovascular health is associated with decelerated biological aging, as measured by phenotypic age. We also found a dose-dependent association—as heart health goes up, biological aging goes down,” said Nour Makarem, Ph. D. assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. The American Heart Association released the Life Essential Eight in 2022. People can go to& My Life Check& on the AHA website to see their score on the index. Improvement in these eight areas can drastically improve one’s health. The eight are eating better, being more active, quitting tobacco, getting healthy sleep, managing weight, and controlling cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure. The list was originally the simple seven, but new data from the organization have proven sleep important for cardiovascular health. AHA’s past president, Dr. Donald Lloyd Jones,& explained& that people who get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep manage health factors such as...