Excessive drinking linked to jump in high blood pressure deaths during COVID pandemic, CDC report says
Excessive drinking was linked to a jump in high blood pressure deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the report, out Friday, researchers found the estimated average number of hypertension deaths from excessive alcohol use
was 51.6% higher in 2020 through 2021 than in 2016 through 2017. This increase amounted to about 21,137 deaths annually, compared to 13,941 for the respective time frames.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID outbreak a pandemic in March 2020. In May 2023, it declared an end to the global pandemic emergency.
The report also analyzed differences among sexes, finding that more than 60% of hypertension deaths caused by excessive drinking were among females — 61.2% during 2016 and 2017, and 62.8% during 2020 and 2021.
During the 2020 through 2021 timeframe, the most recent years for which data is available, excessive alcohol use accounted for 1 in 5 hypertension deaths among females and 1 in 8 among males.
The report looked at adults aged 20 and older using the CDC's Alcohol-Related Disease Impact, or ARDI, tool and mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System.
The report comes as U.S. alcohol-related deaths have been increasing nationwide. Excessive alcohol use is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States, according to the CDC, with about 178,000 people dying from excessive drinking each year. Hypertension deaths linked to drinking, as analyzed in this report, are just a fraction of overall deaths caused by alcohol.
Previous research has shown the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increases in stress-related drinking and alcohol-related deaths, which didn't stop as things returned to normal. One 2024 study found drinking increases from 2018 to 2020 persisted into 2022, for example.
This report is among the last to be published from the CDC's Division of Population Health team that studied alcohol mortality before they were laid off amid sweeping cuts by the Trump administration. The report also comes a week before the government is expected to announce updated dietary guidelines, including to long-standing recommendations about limiting alcohol consumption.
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