AUTHOR=Gui Zhaohuan , Cai Li , Lv Yajie , Lai Lijuan , Zeng Xia , Chen Yajun 

TITLE=Association Between Ideal Cardiovascular Health and Executive Function in Chinese Primary School Children

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.736424

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2021.736424

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Aims:</bold> Little information exists on the associations of cardiovascular health, a new metric proposed by the American Heart Association, and executive function, particularly in children. We aimed to explore this topic.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> We studied 3,798 children aged 6–12 years from 5 schools in Guangzhou, China. The executive function of children was evaluated using parent reports of the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function, which included 2 composite indexes and 8 subscale scores. We calculated the number of ideal cardiovascular health (range: 0–7) based on smoking, body mass index, physical activity (PA), diet, blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose. A generalized linear mixed model was used to assess the association of the number of ideal cardiovascular health metrics and executive function.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> Compared with children exhibiting 1–3 ideal cardiovascular health metrics, decreases of 1.37–2.63 points (indicating better performance) in metacognition index and its 5 subscale indexes (initiate, working memory, plan/organize, organization of materials, and monitor) were observed in children who attained 5 or 6–7 ideal metrics (all <italic>p</italic> for trend &lt;0.001). Ideal diet and ideal PA were independently associated with lower indexes of behavioral regulation and metacognition.</p><p><bold>Conclusions:</bold> The number of ideal cardiovascular health was positively associated with performance of executive function in children.</p>