According to a study published May 27 in The American Journal of Medicine, the death rates of alcoholic cirrhosis or alcohol-related liver disease tripled from 1999 to 2019. Usingthe Online Epidemiological Research database from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that in 1999, the mortality rate for adults ages 25-85+ with alcoholic cirrhosis was of 3.3 per 100,000. In 2019, the mortality rate for the same group jumped to 10.6 per 100,000. Furthermore, data from 2010 to2016 found that alcoholic cirrhosis was the primary cause of nearly 1 in 3 liver transplants, surpassing hepatitis C. Certainly, this alarming trend calls for a public health response to address the impact of excessive alcohol use and more study is needed to understand the impact of co-morbid conditions, such as obesity, that may have a contributing effect.

Alcohol use has soared since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—and the health impacts of increased alcohol consumption are already being seen. Factoring in provisional data from the CDC, another trend emerges: Among adults under 65, more people died from alcohol-related deaths than from COVID in 2020. But even before the pandemic, alcohol use was a growing problem in much of the U.S. Federal data from 2018 shows Midwestern states like Iowa, Missouri and Illinois had the highest rates of binge drinking in the country.