Decline across multiple body systems is linked to heart disease
Across four longitudinal studies, people with rapid decline across four health domains had higher odds of new cardiovascular disease than resilient maintainers.
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers analyzed data from people in four large longitudinal observational cohorts: the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, the Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. They assessed cognitive function, depression, and body mass index, alongside grip strength for muscle strength. The primary outcome was new cardiovascular disease.
At baseline, having three to four unhealthy domains was linked to higher cardiovascular risk across all cohorts. Trajectory modeling identified three patterns over time: resilient maintainers, moderate decliners, and rapid decliners. Compared with maintainers, rapid decliners had higher cardiovascular risk in every cohort. The odds ratios were 1.779 in the China study, 1.396 in the Health and Retirement Study, 1.383 in the English study, and 1.565 in the European study. A higher cumulative burden of unhealthy domains was also linked to higher risk.
Why it matters
Cardiovascular disease remains a leading health threat, but traditional assessments focus on isolated physical factors. Evaluating how multiple body systems decline together over time may support a broader approach to assessing cardiovascular risk as people age.
Caveats
The observational design cannot establish whether multi-system decline causes cardiovascular disease or merely shares underlying risk factors. In addition, the findings come from a conference abstract that does not report participant numbers, demographic details, or follow-up durations.
