100,000 U.S. Deaths Due To Diabetes In 2021, Second Year In A Row

More than 100,000 Americans have died from diabetes for the second year in a row, Reuters reported. The surge in deaths was partly due to missed treatment and diagnosis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts.

“The large number of diabetes deaths for a second year in a row is certainly a cause for alarm,” Dr. Paul Hsu, an epidemiologist at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, told Reuters. “Type 2 diabetes itself is relatively preventable, so it’s even more tragic that so many deaths are occurring.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also noted that in 2019, diabetes caused deaths was approximately 87,000 in the United States, but have since risen steadily:

Since then, the nation’s toll from diabetes has increased sharply, surpassing 100,000 deaths in each of the last two years and representing a new record-high level, according to a Reuters analysis of provisional death data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Diabetes-related deaths surged 17% in 2020 and 15% in 2021 compared to the prepandemic level in 2019. That excluded deaths directly attributed to COVID-19. The CDC concurred with the Reuters analysis and said additional deaths from 2021 are still being tallied.

Accordingly, a federal panel recently noted that the diabetes amongst American adults has “increased from 5.3% in the late 1970s to 14.3% in 2018.” – READ MORE