Life Satisfaction and Ideal Cardiovascular Health Score: A Cross-Sectional Study From ELSA-Brasil

Objectives: To investigate whether higher levels of life satisfaction are associated with a higher ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) score in middle-aged and older populations in the Brazilian context. Method: Cross-sectional analysis of 12,936 participants of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health, Visit 2 (2012-2014), aged 38-79 years. The response variables were the global, lifestyle, and biological ideal CVH scores, as defined by the American Heart Association Life's Simple 7. The scores were categorized as low, intermediate, and optimal. Life satisfaction was measured by the Satisfaction with the Life Scale. Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the magnitude with adjustment for potential confounding factors. Low scores were the categories of reference for the analyses. Results: Only 10.5% of the participants had an optimal (>= 5) global ideal CVH score. After total adjustment, 1 SD increment in the life satisfaction score was associated with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.05 (95% confidence interval [CI: 1.01-1.09]) and 1.15 (95% CI [1.07-1.23]) for intermediate and optimal global ideal CVH scores, respectively. Regarding the lifestyle ideal CVH score, the increment of 1 SD in the life satisfaction scale determined an OR of 1.11 (95% CI [1.06-1.15]) and 1.22 (95% CI [1.14-1.31]) for intermediate and optimal lifestyle ideal CVH score, respectively. Life satisfaction was not associated with the biological ideal CVH score. Conclusion: The results suggested that the higher the life satisfaction, the higher the CVH. The findings add to the knowledge of assets to promote CVH. Public Significance Statement There is a growing interest in the health-protective effect of life satisfaction. These findings based on middle-aged and older Brazilians indicated that higher life satisfaction was related to better global cardiovascular health (CVH). The results also suggest that life satisfaction is more related to healthy lifestyle behaviors than subclinical CVH.