COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, leading to widespread stay-at-home orders and severely limiting access to health care.
Growing evidence also suggests the coronavirus put some people at higher risk for new or worsening heart disease.
Scientists found after steadily declining for nearly a decade, the heart disease death rate rose significantly during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to 2020, death rates from heart disease had been declining among adults for decades.
The increases in death rates from heart disease in 2020 represented about five years of lost progress among adults nationwide and about 10 years of lost progress among younger adults and non-Hispanic Black adults.
In the study, researchers used the CDC’s Wide-Ranging ONLine Data for Epidemiologic Research, or WONDER, database, researchers analyzed aggregated death certificate data from 2010 to 2020.
The analysis showed the U.S. heart disease death rate fell by 9.8% from 2010 to 2019, then rose by 4.1% in 2020, returning to roughly the level in 2015.
The increased heart disease death rate was particularly high among younger adults, representing about 10 years of lost progress for this group.
From 2010 to 2019, the death rate fell by 5.5% for adults 35 to 54. But in 2020, it jumped 12%, not only erasing prior progress but exceeding levels from a decade earlier.
This also was true for adults 55 to 74. In this group, the death rate initially fell by 2.3% between 2010 and 2019, then rose to 7.8% in 2020.
Black adults also experienced about 10 years of lost progress. In the decade leading up to 2019, the heart disease death rate in this group fell to 10.4%, then jumped to 11.2% in 2020, returning to the 2010 rate.
Other pandemic-related factors – such as decreases in physical activity and increases in smoking and alcohol use – also may have contributed to the reversal.
The team says if you are a person who has not received medical care for one or more years because of the pandemic, please seek out care from a healthcare professional.
Healthcare professionals also should identify which of their patients have dropped off their radar and reach out to those people and offer medical assistance.
If you care about COVID, please read studies that flu and COVID-19 vaccines may increase heart disease risk, and this drug combo may treat COVID-19 effectively.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about antibodies that block all the COVID-19 variants, and results showing the best time to take vitamins to prevent heart disease.
The study was presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions
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