This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
Fewer than 5% of U.S. military veterans may achieve optimal cardiovascular health based on the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 metrics, highlighting an urgent opportunity to improve prevention and help veterans live longer, healthier lives, according to a new scientific statement published in Circulation.
The statement, "Cardiovascular Health Promotion for U.S. Veterans: Current State, Gaps, and Strategies," is devoted specifically to promoting cardiovascular health among military veterans. It applies the Life's Essential 8 framework, and additionally considers mental health and substance use, to evaluate cardiovascular health among U.S. veterans and to identify strategies that clinicians, researchers and policymakers can use to improve health outcomes for this population.
Life's Essential 8 includes healthy eating, physical activity, avoiding tobacco use, healthy sleep, healthy weight, and healthy levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure. According to the American Heart Association, around 20% of the general U.S. adult population may achieve optimal cardiovascular health.
"Veterans are not simply older adults who happen to have served in the military. They are a diverse population with unique health risks shaped by their military service, chronic conditions, mental health, service-related exposures and barriers to care," said Neal Yuan, M.D., chair of the scientific statement volunteer writing group, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the University of California San Francisco.
"Recognizing how these factors interact and influence well-being is essential to providing effective prevention and treatment."
Source link







