Abstract
AIMS/INTRODUCTION: To evaluate the association between ideal cardiovascular health metrics (ICVHM) and incident type 2 diabetes mellitus among Iranian men and women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study population included 7,488 Iranian adults aged ≥20 years (4,236 women) free from diabetes at baseline. The ICVHM was defined according to the American Heart Association's 2020 impact goals. The multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) for ICVHM both as continuous and categorical variables. RESULTS: Over the median of 9.1 years of follow-up, we identified 922 new cases of type 2 diabetes mellitus (526 women). Body mass index <30 kg/m(2) , untreated systolic/diastolic blood pressure <120/80 mmHg in both sexes, and physical activity ≥1,500 MET min/week (only among men) were significantly associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Each additional unit in the ICVHM was associated with a 21 and 15% lower risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in men and women, respectively (P-values <0.05). Compared with participants having poor cardiovascular health, the HR for type 2 diabetes mellitus risk was 0.69 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.56-0.85) and 0.35 (95% CI 0.21-0.59) for men with intermediate and ideal CVHM, respectively. The corresponding values for women were 0.79 (95% CI 0.65-0.97) and 0.30 (95% CI 0.15-0.60), respectively. In a subpopulation with nutritional data (n = 2,236), ideal and intermediate nutritional status was associated with 83 and 77% lower risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus only among women (P-values <0.05). CONCLUSION: We found a strong inverse association between having higher global ICVHM with incident type 2 diabetes mellitus; which is mainly attributable to normal blood pressure, normal body weight, and intensive physical activity (only for men).