Excessive drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic increased alcoholic liver disease deaths so much that the condition killed more Californians than car accidents or breast cancer, a KFF Health News analysis found.While this led to a rise in all sorts of alcohol-related deaths, the number of Californians dying from alcoholic liver disease spiked dramatically, with 14,209 deaths between 2020 and 2022, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many who increased their drinking during the pandemic were already on the verge of developing severe alcoholic liver disease, said Jovan Julien, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School. The extra alcohol sped up the process, killing them earlier than they would have otherwise died, said Julien, who co-wrote a modeling study during the pandemic that predicted many of the trends that occurred.
“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 drinking,” Lee said. Jeremy Campbell, executive director of Waterfront Recovery Services in Eureka, said Humboldt County and other rural areas often don’t have the resources and facilities to address high rates of alcohol use disorder. His facility provides high-intensity residential services and uses medication to get people through detox.
Death rates rose more among Native American, Latino, Asian and Black Californians during the last 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. In addition, he said, rates of metabolic syndrome increased more quickly among nonwhites than among whites.
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