What Is Cardiometabolic Health? Why It Matters After 65

In this article:

• Cardiometabolic health refers to the health of your cardiovascular system - your heart and blood vessels - and your metabolic health - how your body handles food and nutrients.
• Cardiometabolic health risk increases after age 65 for reasons including reduced muscle mass, increased lifestyle risk factors, and changes in body function. 
• Conditions linked to impaired cardiometabolic health include diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), increased risk of stroke or heart attack, and prediabetes. 
• Prediabetes is a metabolic condition that increases risk for diabetes. It’s also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. 
• Over half of adults over 65 years old have high blood sugar that’s in the prediabetes range, but lifestyle changes like losing weight and increasing physical activity levels can lower cardiometabolic risk and risk for diabetes if you have prediabetes. 
• The Medicare-covered Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) is a structured, year-long lifestyle change program for eligible Medicare enrollees. Medicare covers digital and in-person MDPP in 2026.
• Lark MDPP is a digital health coaching program. Lark is available 24/7 for coaching, support, encouragement, and information. 

Have you ever felt that health can feel…complicated? It can feel like a lot if you’ve ever sat in a doctor’s office or checked online for lab results for things like blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels, for example. But these results aren’t just a laundry list of unrelated measurements. They’re actually related. 

Healthcare providers are increasingly looking at these types of measurements as something called cardiometabolic health. You can think of it as a way to look at your health from a broader perspective than just heart health or metabolism. Your cardiometabolic health gives a broader perspective of your health. 

After age 65, the body has natural changes that lead to increased cardiometabolic health risk, but there’s good news. Your everyday choices can help and this way of looking at your body also helps to pave a more effective path towards managing health. In addition, support is available to help you make healthy changes. Medicare offers a variety of preventive programs at $0 cost to eligible enrollees, with the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) as an example. 

Here’s what you should know about cardiometabolic health, why it matters after 65, and what steps you can take to manage cardiometabolic health and get support. 

What Is Cardiometabolic Health - And How Is It Different from Just Heart Health? 

To understand, “cardiometabolic,” it helps to break it down. 

• “Cardio” means, “heart,” and in this case, it refers to your cardiovascular system, or your heart and blood vessels. You might think about how strong your heart is, how well your blood flows through your blood vessels, and how things like high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels might affect blood flow. 
• “Metabolic” describes how your body breaks down nutrients. Examples include breaking fat, carbohydrates, and protein into usable energy for fuel, taking sugar from the blood to fuel working muscles during exercise, and getting protein from food to support muscle recovery and repair. 

When evaluating your cardiometabolic health, your doctor might evaluate the following.

These factors all interact with each other. If one shifts out of balance, the others may start to slip. 

Why Cardiometabolic Risk Changes After Age 65

Bodies change as we get older. Here are some common shifts related to cardiometabolic risk. 

• Reduced muscle mass (sarcopenia): It’s natural to gradually lose muscle mass with age. Because muscle tissue takes up a big proportion of glucose (sugar) from the blood, having less muscle mass can lead to higher blood sugar levels. 
• Reduced physical activity levels: Aches and pains, fatigue, and other challenges often cause people to be less active with age. This raises the risk of high blood sugar, less healthy cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure. 
• Cumulative risks: Over time, arteries can get stiffer, leading to high blood pressure and unfavorable cholesterol levels.

When cardiometabolic factors remain out of balance for an extended period, they can gradually raise the risk for several interconnected health conditions:

• High blood pressure (hypertension)
• Type 2 diabetes
• Heart disease and heart attack
• Stroke

With these types of changes and risk factors, it’s no surprise that we may have to change how we manage health. Medicare recognizes this, and provides programs like MDPP to help. The MDPP is for Medicare recipients with prediabetes, which affects over half of adults over age 65. Prediabetes serves as a signal that your body is struggling with cardiometabolic health - but that there’s still time to make lifestyle changes to support health. 

The MDPP is based on research showing that older adults with prediabetes can lower their risk for diabetes by making simple lifestyle changes. These are some examples. 

• Lose a small amount of weight with sustainable changes like swapping water for soda and trimming fat from meat. 
• Aim for 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity activity like brisk walking (assuming your healthcare provider approves).
• Build portion-controlled, balanced meals with vegetables, lean proteins, high-fiber fruit and carbohydrates, and healthy fats in place of processed carbs, added sugars, and solid fats. 
• Prioritize behaviors like sleep and stress management to balance hormones and enable optimal metabolic regulation. 

These changes may not be easy on your own, but the MDPP simplifies them for you. 

How a Digital Health Coaching Program Can Support Lifestyle Changes

With a phone-based coaching program to guide you through the MDPP, it’s easier to make healthy changes and keep them up. Here is some of what a digital coach like Lark MDPP can offer.

• Strategies for breaking down goals and taking tiny steps to make changes
• Tracking progress, meals, weight, and physical activity
• Encouragement and motivation whenever you need it
• Convenience and always-available coaching from your phone

A digital coach is private and never judgemental. 

See If You Qualify at No Cost to You

Lark's Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program offers personal health coaching delivered right to your phone - built around the same CDC-recognized program that showed a 71% risk reduction in adults over 60. There is no cost to eligible Medicare members. 

Lark can help you stay on track with your weight and health goals as you log, track, and chat. Your Lark coach is available 24/7 for encouragement, nutrition and physical activity coaching, and habit tracking. Lark can help you make healthy choices and establish habits that fit into your lifestyle so you can lose weight and keep it off with or without GLP-1 medications. 

Click here to see if you may be eligible to join Lark MDPP or another Lark program today!

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