Adults who keep eight simple health metrics in check may age slower, research has suggested.
Researchers believe following the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 can shave up to six years off your biological age.
Measures included on the checklist include eating healthily, exercising regularly, not smoking, and getting enough sleep.
The four other checkpoints relate to staying slim, keeping cholesterol low, and having healthy blood pressure and sugar levels.
Experts say the eight measures promote good heart health, which in turn might slow the pace of biological aging.
The American Heart Association created Life’s Essential 8 — a checklist for maintaining good heart health — in 2022. It includes eating healthily, exercising regularly, quitting smoking, and sleeping enough, as well as maintaining a healthy weight and keeping cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure in check.
Scientists at Columbia University in New York analyzed data from more than 6,500 Americans, aged 47, on average.
They calculated their phenotypic age — an experimental measure of biological age based on the results of nine biomarkers, including those that monitor metabolism, inflammation, and organ function.
Scientists also gave each participant either a high, moderate, or low cardiovascular score based on how well they stuck to the Life Essential 8 checklist.
Factors that could skew the results, income, education, and ethnicity, were accounted for.
Having high cardiovascular health was associated with a lower biological age — meaning these participants were younger than expected physiologically.
For example, the average actual age of those with high cardiovascular health was 41, yet their average biological age was 36.
In contrast, those with low cardiovascular health had a positive phenotypic age acceleration — meaning that they were older than expected biologically.
And the average actual age of those with low cardiovascular health was 53, while their biological age was 57 — four years higher than expected.
Further analysis suggested that having the highest healthy score was linked to being six years younger, biologically.
Study author Professor Nour Makarem, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University in New York, said: ‘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.’
She added: ‘Greater adherence to all Life’s Essential 8 metrics and improving your cardiovascular health can slow down your body’s aging process and have a lot of benefits down the line.’
Reduced biological aging is not just associated with a lower risk of chronic disease such as heart disease, it is also associated with longer life and a lower risk of death.
Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the writing group for Life’s Essential 8 and former volunteer president of the American Heart Association, said: ‘These findings help us understand the link between chronological age and biological age and how following healthy lifestyle habits can help us live longer.’
‘Everyone wants to live longer, yet more importantly, we want to live healthier longer so we can really enjoy and have good quality of life for as many years as possible.’
The researchers acknowledged that the participant’s cardiovascular health was only measured once, which doesn’t account for changes over time.
The preliminary study will be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2023 in Philadelphia between November 11 and 13.
In a separate study published today, researchers in Sweden also found people who have a higher biological age than their actual chronological age have an increased risk of stroke and dementia.
Scientists at the Karolinska Institutet said someone whose biological age was five years higher than their actual age had a 40 percent greater risk of developing vascular dementia or suffering a stroke.
They used 18 biomarkers to calculate biological age, including blood fats, blood sugar, and lung function of 325,000 Brits aged 40 to 70.
Sara Hagg, associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet, said: ‘Several of the values can be influenced through lifestyle and medications.’
The study, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, also found the risk of developing ALS, also known as motor neurone disease (MND), increases with higher biological age.
However, no such risk increase was seen for Parkinson’s.