Excessive alcohol consumption during the pandemic has increased death rates from alcoholic liver disease

Excessive alcohol consumption during the covid-19 pandemic has increased alcoholic liver disease deaths so much that the disease has killed more Californians than car accidents or breast cancer, according to an analysis by KFF Health News.

Lockdowns have made people isolated, depressed and anxious, leading some to increase their alcohol consumption. Alcohol sales have increased during the pandemic, with particularly large jumps in the consumption of spirits.

Although this has led to an increase in all kinds of alcohol-related deaths, the number of Californians dying from alcoholic liver disease has increased significantly, with 14,209 deaths between 2020 and 2022, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alcoholic liver disease is the most common cause of alcohol-related death nationwide. In California, the death rate from the disease in the past three years was 25% higher than in the three years before the pandemic. The rate peaked at 13.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 2021, nearly double the rate from two decades ago.

The disease is usually caused by years of heavy drinking, although it can sometimes occur after a short period of heavy drinking. There are often no symptoms until late in the illness, when weakness, confusion, and jaundice may occur.

Many of those who increased their alcohol consumption during the pandemic were already on the verge of developing severe alcoholic liver disease, said Harvard Medical School postdoctoral fellow Jovan Julien. The extra alcohol sped the process, killing them sooner than they otherwise would have died, said Julien, who co-authored a modeling study during the pandemic that predicted many of the trends that occurred.

Even before the pandemic, lifestyle and diet changes were contributing to more deaths from alcoholic liver disease, despite little change in alcohol sales, said Brian Lee, a hepatologist and transplant specialist at liver at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Lee and other researchers have found a link between alcoholic liver disease and metabolic syndrome, a condition often characterized by excess body fat around the waist. Metabolic syndrome – often caused by poor diet and an inactive lifestyle – has increased across the country.

“Having metabolic syndrome, which is associated with obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, more than doubles your risk of having advanced liver disease at the same level of alcohol consumption,” Lee said.

Alcoholic liver disease in Californians most often kills people between the ages of 55 and 74. They make up about a quarter of adults in the state, but more than half of alcoholic liver disease deaths.

However, death rates among Californians ages 25 to 44 have roughly doubled in the past decade. About 2,650 Californians in this age group have died from the disease in the past three years, compared to 1,270 deaths from 2010 to 2012.

“People are drinking at earlier levels,” Lee said. “People develop obesity at a younger age.”

The highest death rates from alcoholic liver disease occur in rural eastern and northern California. In Humboldt County, for example, the death rate from alcoholic liver disease is more than double the statewide rate.

Jeremy Campbell, executive director of Waterfront Recovery Services in Eureka, said Humboldt County and other rural areas often lack the resources and facilities to deal with high rates of substance use disorders. alcohol. His facility provides high-intensity residential services and uses medication to help people detox.

“The other two inpatient treatment centers in Eureka are also at full capacity,” he said. “It’s just a situation where there just isn’t enough treatment.”

Campbell also pointed to the demographics of Humboldt County, which has a much higher proportion of white and Native American residents than the rest of the state. Death rates from alcoholic liver disease in California are highest among Native American and white residents.

Death rates have risen more among Native American, Latino, Asian and Black Californians over the past decade than among non-Latino white Californians, CDC data shows. Part of that is due to disparities in insurance coverage and access to care, Lee said. Also, Lee said, rates of metabolic syndrome rose faster in nonwhites than in whites. Racial health disparities are also manifested in different survival rates for black and white patients after liver transplants, he added.

The trend should continue. Julien projects a temporary drop in deaths because many people who would have died of the disease in 2022 or 2023 instead died earlier, after an increase in alcohol consumption during the pandemic, but that deaths will increase later as bad habits developed during the pandemic will begin to take a long-term toll.

“While people have increased their drinking during covid-19, we have more people now who have initiated alcohol use disorder,” Julien said.

Phillip Reese is a data communications specialist and assistant professor of journalism at California State University-Sacramento.

This article was produced by KFF Health Newswho publishes California Healthlinean editorially independent service California Health Care Foundation.