Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Med.

Sec. Rheumatology

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1511270

Association of Life's Simple 7 with Osteoarthritis Risk: A Cross-Sectional Study from NHANES 2009-2018

Provisionally accepted
Teng Ma Teng Ma 1,2*Zhiping Yu Zhiping Yu 1,2Wenjing Qu Wenjing Qu 2Xiaogeng Sun Xiaogeng Sun 2Jian Huang Jian Huang 2Wenpeng Xie Wenpeng Xie 3Haibo Cong Haibo Cong 2,4
  • 1 Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
  • 2 Department of Orthopedics, Limin Hospital of Weihai High District, Weihai, China, Weihai, China
  • 3 Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, Shandong Province, China
  • 4 Medical Science and Technology Innovation Center, Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: The Life's Simple 7 (LS7) metric is a comprehensive index evaluating cardiovascular health from a holistic perspective, integrating seven cardiovascular-related health factors and behaviors. However, the relationship between LS7 and the likelihood of developing osteoarthritis (OA) remains unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the possible association between LS7 and OA.Methods: Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2009 to 2018, 19,603 participants were included in this study. LS7 was treated as the independent variable, whereas OA served as the dependent variable. The association between LS7 and OA was assessed by performing a weighted logistic regression analysis. To evaluate the stability of the findings, subgroup analyses were conducted. Additionally, restricted cubic spline (RCS) analysis was conducted to explore potential nonlinear relationships between LS7 and OA.Results: LS7 scores were significantly negatively correlated with OA risk (OR: 0.808, 95% CI: 0.786-0.830). Analysis of LS7 categories indicated that individuals with ideal scores had a 55.9% lower OA risk than those with poor scores (OR: 0.559, 95% CI: 0.379-0.823). Subgroup analysis demonstrated that factors such as age, gender, marital status, BMI, and blood pressure moderated the relationship between LS7 and OA in inconsistent ways. The RCS analysis revealed a significant nonlinear negative association between LS7 scores and OA risk (p-nonlinear < 0.001). Conclusions: This study suggests a nonlinear negative correlation between LS7 and OA risk, implying that better cardiovascular health may be linked to a reduced risk of developing OA. However, the relationship varies across different subgroups.

    Keywords: Osteoarthritis, Life's Simple 7, NHANES, Cardiovascular health, Cross-Sectional Studies

    Received: 18 Oct 2024; Accepted: 26 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Yu, Qu, Sun, Huang, Xie and Cong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Teng Ma, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

    Research integrity at Frontiers

    Man ultramarathon runner in the mountains he trains at sunset

    95% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good

    Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.


    Find out more