Excessive drinking during pandemic increases alcoholic liver disease mortality

Excessive drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic has driven alcoholic liver disease deaths so high that the number of Californians who have died from the disease is car accident again breast canceran analysis of KFF Health News found.

Lockdowns have left people feeling isolated, depressed and anxious, and some even increased their alcohol consumption. Alcohol sales increased during the pandemic.especially Consumption of spirits increased significantly.

This caused prices of all kinds to rise, alcohol-related deathsthe number of Californians dying from alcoholic liver disease surged dramatically, killing 14,209 From 2020 to 2022according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alcoholic liver disease is most common cause Number of alcohol-related deaths nationwide. In California, mortality from this disease in the past three years was 25% higher than in the previous three years. 3 years before the pandemic. The death rate in 2021 will peak at 13.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, almost double the death rate 20 years ago.

The disorder is usually caused by years of heavy drinking, but it can also develop after a short period of heavy drinking. Symptoms often do not appear until later in the disease, when weakness, confusion, and jaundice may occur.

Many of those who increased their drinking during the pandemic were already at risk. develop severe alcoholic liver diseaseSaid Jovan Julien, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. Julian said the extra alcohol hastened the progression, otherwise he would have died sooner. co-authored a modeling study Many trends were predicted during the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, changes in lifestyle and diet contributed to an increase in deaths from alcoholic liver disease, despite little change in alcohol sales, he said. Brian Leea hepatologist and liver transplant specialist at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.

Lee and other researchers discovered Association between alcoholic liver disease and metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a condition that is often characterized by excess body fat around the waist. Metabolic syndrome, often caused by poor diet and inactive lifestyles, is on the rise nationwide.

“If you have metabolic syndrome with obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, the same level of drinking more than doubles your risk of developing advanced liver disease,” Lee said.

Californian alcoholic liver disease kill people most often People between the ages of 55 and 74. They make up about a quarter of the state’s adults, but account for more than half of all alcoholic liver disease deaths.

But the death rate for Californians ages 25 to 44 has nearly doubled over the past decade. About 2,650 Californians in this age group died from the disease in the past three years, compared with 1,270 deaths between 2010 and 2012.

“People are drinking at earlier levels,” Lee said. “People are developing obesity at a young age.”

of highest mortality Alcoholic liver disease occurs in rural eastern and northern California. Humboldt County, for example, has more than twice the death rate from alcoholic liver disease as the state as a whole.

Jeremy Campbell, Executive Director Waterfront Restoration Service Eureka magazine said Humboldt County and other rural areas often lack the resources and facilities to address high rates of alcohol use disorders. His facility provides intensive residential services and uses drugs to detoxify people.

“Two other inpatient care facilities in Eureka are also at capacity,” he said. “This is simply a situation where there are not enough treatments.”

Campbell also pointed to Humboldt County’s demographics. much higher percentage It has more white and Native American residents than any other part of the state.Mortality from Alcoholic Liver Disease in California it’s the best among Native Americans and white inhabitants.

According to CDC data, death rates increased more among Native American, Latino, Asian, and black Californians than among non-Latino white Californians over the past decade. This is partly due to disparities in insurance coverage and access to care, Lee said. In addition, Lee said the prevalence of metabolic syndrome is increasing faster among nonwhites than whites. Racial health disparities are also reflected in differences in survival rates between black and white patients after liver transplantation, he added.

This trend is expected to continue. Julian expects the death toll to drop temporarily, as many people who would have died from the disease in 2022 or 2023 died sooner rather than later due to increased drinking during the pandemic. But he expects the death toll to rise afterward as bad habits learned during the pandemic begin to take hold. Long-term compensation.

“More people are now developing alcohol use disorders because people were drinking more during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Julian said.

Philip Reese is a data reporting specialist and assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Sacramento.

This article was created by KFF Health Newsto publish california health linean editorially independent service. California Health Care Foundation.