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Background: Despite the release of updated metrics for Life's Essential 8 (LE8), key indicators for assessing cardiovascular health (CVH) status, there is currently no report on their distribution among Chinese children., Objective: This study aimed to assess the nationwide distribution of CVH in Chinese school-aged children using LE8 scores and analyze temporal changes in these scores over time., Methods: Participants aged 7 to 19 years from 11 waves (between 1989 and 2018) of the China Health and Nutrition Survey were included in this study. LE8 components were grouped into 2 domains of health behaviors (diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep) and health factors (BMI, blood lipids, blood glucose, blood pressure). Scores of overall CVH and each LE8 metric were calculated individually. Temporal changes were assessed with joint point regression models by rural and urban living residence. The causal relationships between health behaviors and health factors that changed the most over time were built with cross-lagged panel models., Results: A total of 21,921 participants, 52.6% (n=11,537) of whom were male, who had data for at least 4 CVH components were included in the analysis. The mean age was 13 (SD 3.6) years. The overall CVH score remained stable in most regions, with the lowest found in Shandong from East China, which had a mean between 67 (SD 10.9) and 67.2 (SD 12.4). In contrast, the highest score was found in Guizhou from Southwest China, with a mean between 71.4 (SD 10.8) and 74.3 (SD 10.3). In rural areas, the diet score decreased significantly from 1997 onward with a speed of 0.18 (95% CI: 0.15-0.21; P<.001) per year, and the BMI score decreased significantly from 2005 onward with a speed of 0.56 (95% CI 0.44-0.68; P<.001) per year. In urban areas, the diet score decreased from 1994 onward with a speed of 0.03 (95% CI: 0.001-0.07; P=.04) per year, and the BMI score decreased from 2002 onward with a speed of 0.63 (95% CI 0.47-0.79; P<.001) per year. The sleep score dropped constantly in both urban and rural areas, with a speed of 0.69 (95% CI 0.58-0.80; P<.001) and 0.69 (95% CI: 0.52-0.86; P<.001) per year, respectively. A decline in the diet score led to a decline in the BMI score with a coefficient of 0.190 (95% CI 0.030-0.351; P=.02), while a decline in the BMI score led to a decline in sleep health with a coefficient of 0.089 (95% CI 0.010-0.168; P=.03)., Conclusions: Chinese school-aged children and adolescents were generally of moderate CVH status, but mutual influences existed between CVH metrics. Dietary interventions should be prioritized for promoting overall CVH in the future., (©Xijie Wang, Bin Dong, Feifei Huang, Ji Zhang, Rongxin He, Shufa Du, Jiguo Zhang, Jun Ma, Huijun Wang, Bing Zhang, Wannian Liang. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 23.10.2023.)

Importance: Spouses share common socioeconomic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, and multiple studies have found that spousal diabetes status was associated with diabetes prevalence. But the association of spousal diabetes status and ideal cardiovascular health metrics (ICVHMs) assessed by the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 measures with incident diabetes has not been comprehensively characterized, especially in large-scale cohort studies., Objective: To explore the association of spousal diabetes status and cardiovascular health metrics with risk of incident diabetes in Chinese adults., Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study included individuals in the China Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer Cohort without diabetes who underwent baseline and follow-up glucose measurements and had spouses with baseline glucose measurements. The data were collected in January 2011 to December 2012 and March 2014 to December 2016. The spousal study had a mean (SD) follow-up of 3.6 (0.9) years (median [IQR], 3.2 [2.9-4.5] years). Statistical analysis was performed from July to November 2022., Exposure: Spousal diabetes status was diagnosed according to the 2010 American Diabetes Association (ADA) criteria. All participants provided detailed clinical, sociodemographic, and lifestyle information included in cardiovascular health metrics., Main Outcomes and Measures: Incident diabetes, diagnosed according to 2010 ADA criteria., Results: Overall, 34 821 individuals were included, with a mean (SD) age of 56.4 (8.3) years and 16 699 (48.0%) male participants. Spousal diabetes diagnosis was associated with an increased risk of incident diabetes (hazard ratio [HR], 1.15; 95% CI, 1.03-1.30). Furthermore, participants whose spouses had uncontrolled glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) had a higher risk of diabetes (HR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.04-1.39) but the risk of diabetes in participants whose spouses had controlled HbA1c did not increase significantly (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 0.92-1.30). Moreover, this association varied with composite cardiovascular health status. Diabetes risk in individuals who had poor cardiovascular health status (<4 ICVHMs) was associated with spousal diabetes status (3 ICVHMs: HR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.15-1.97), while diabetes risk in individuals who had intermediate to ideal cardiovascular health status (≥4 ICVHMs) was not associated with it (4 ICVHMs: HR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.69-1.50)., Conclusions and Relevance: In this study, spousal diabetes diagnosis with uncontrolled HbA1c level was associated with increased risk of incident diabetes, but strict management of spousal HbA1c level and improving ICVHM profiles may attenuate the association of spousal diabetes status with diabetes risk. These findings suggest the potential benefit of couple-based lifestyle or pharmaceutical interventions for diabetes.

Background and Aims: Little is known about the long-term trends in ethnic differences in cardiovascular health (CVH) in China in recent years. This study aimed to investigate ethnic differences in CVH and identify long-term trends in China., Methods and Results: This survey was based on the physical examination data of Tacheng Prefecture in China from 2016 to 2020, and included 1,947,938 physical examination participants aged over 20 years for analysis. The American Heart Association (AHA) criteria were used to evaluate the clinical CVH of the subjects. The time trends from 2016 to 2020 were assessed using a weighted linear regression model stratified by ethnicity. The ethnic groups included Han, Kazakh, Hui, Mongolian, Uyghur, among others. The mean ideal clinical cardiovascular score was highest in Hui and lowest in Uyghur. The scores increased from 5.99 (5.95-6.03) to 6.11 (6.08-6.14) in Kazakh males and from 6.05 (5.99-6.11) to 6.11 (6.06-6.16) in Hui males among participants (P linear trend < 0.001). The scores for the other groups declined significantly from 2016 to 2020(P linear trend ＜ 0.05). In the sensitivity analysis, the trend remained unchanged after calculating the body mass index (BMI) cut-off for China., Conclusion: Clinical CVH differences still exist among different ethnic groups, with a decline in CVH from 2016 to 2020 in all except Kazakh and Hui males. This may indicate a higher incidence and poorer prognosis of cardiovascular disease in the future and can provide guidelines for improving CVH., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None declared., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)