Heart health linked to lower coronary risk in mutation carriers
A standard-deviation score increase was linked to coronary disease hazard ratios (relative event rates) of 0.74 in mutation carriers versus 0.68 in noncarriers.
Limit: Coronary risk reduction from actively improving cardiovascular health scores was not measured
In an observational study, researchers analysed 427,295 UK Biobank participants for links between cardiovascular health, clonal haematopoiesis and coronary artery disease. Clonal haematopoiesis is the expansion of blood-forming stem cells carrying mutations linked to leukaemia. It affected 3.4% of participants.
The researchers used Life’s Essential 8, the American Heart Association’s cardiovascular health score. Higher scores were associated with lower odds of clonal haematopoiesis. Over a median 13.6 years, higher scores were also linked to lower coronary artery disease risk, but the association was weaker in people with clonal haematopoiesis. The hazard ratios compared scores differing by one standard deviation, a measure of how widely scores varied.
Why it matters
For an age-related disease such as coronary artery disease, the study addressed how conventional measures of heart health relate to risk alongside blood-cell mutations.
Caveats
This observational study cannot establish cause and effect. It did not test whether changing cardiovascular health scores changes disease risk.
- Coronary artery disease
- ASXL1-mutant clonal hematopoiesis
- Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential
- Life's Essential 8 score
- Humans
The paper
Association of Life's Essential 8 With Clonal Hematopoiesis and Coronary Artery Disease
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Massachusetts General Hospital
JACC CardioOncology, 15 Oct 2026
