Life's Essential 8 score and arterial stiffness in patients with type 2 diabetes.

What This Means

This research suggests that maintaining better overall cardiovascular health over the long term is linked to a substantially lower risk of developing arterial stiffness — a hardening of the arteries — in people with type 2 diabetes. The study tracked 2,685 diabetes patients for nearly 10 years, measuring their cardiovascular health using the American Heart Association's 'Life's Essential 8' (LE8) scoring system, which combines factors like diet, physical activity, sleep, body weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Patients who maintained higher LE8 scores over time had far fewer cases of arterial stiffness than those with lower scores. The difference was striking: compared to those with the lowest cardiovascular health scores, people in the highest scoring group had an 85% lower risk of developing arterial stiffness (hazard ratio of 0.15). Even those in the second and third quartiles had 31% and 59% lower risks, respectively. This suggests a strong, graded relationship — the better someone's overall cardiovascular health profile, the more protected they appeared to be against arterial stiffness. Arterial stiffness is a known risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and people with type 2 diabetes are already at elevated cardiovascular risk. This research suggests that comprehensive, sustained attention to multiple aspects of cardiovascular health — rather than any single factor alone — may be particularly important for reducing arterial stiffness progression in this population. The findings highlight the potential value of the LE8 framework as a way to assess and track long-term cardiovascular health in people living with type 2 diabetes.