Cardiovascular health in early adulthood predicts the development of coronary heart disease in individuals with type 1 diabetes: 25 year follow-up from the Pittsburgh Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications study.

Aims/hypothesis: Type 1 diabetes increases CHD risk. We examined the use of the American Heart Association's cardiovascular health metrics (blood pressure, total cholesterol, glucose/HbA, BMI, physical activity, diet, smoking) to predict incidence of CHD among individuals with type 1 diabetes, with the hypothesis that a better American Heart Association health metric profile would be associated with lower incident CHD.

Methods: Prevalence of the seven cardiovascular health metrics was determined using first and second visits from adult participants (mean age 28.6 years) in the Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications prospective cohort study of childhood-onset type 1 diabetes. An ideal metric score (0-7) was defined as the sum of all metrics within the ideal range, and a total metric score (0-14) was calculated based on poor, intermediate and ideal categories for each metric. Incident CHD development (medical record-confirmed CHD death, myocardial infarction, revascularisation, ischaemic electrocardiogram changes or Epidemiology of Diabetes Complications physician-determined angina) over 25 years of follow-up was examined by metric scores.

Results: Among 435 participants, BMI, blood pressure, total cholesterol and smoking demonstrated the highest prevalence within the ideal range, while diet and HbA demonstrated the lowest. During 25 years of follow-up, 177 participants developed CHD. In Cox models, each additional metric within the ideal range was associated with a 19% lower risk (p = 0.01), and each unit increase in total metric score was associated with a 17% lower risk (p < 0.01) of CHD, adjusting for diabetes duration, estimated glomerular filtration rate, albumin excretion rate, triacylglycerols, depression and white blood cell count.

Conclusions/interpretation: Among individuals with type 1 diabetes, higher cardiovascular health metric scores were associated with lower risk of incident CHD. The American Heart Association-defined cardiovascular health metrics provide straightforward goals for health promotion that may reduce CHD risk in the type 1 diabetes population. Graphical abstract.