US deaths from heart disease and diabetes climbed amid COVID - Fox News

saw remarkable increases in the death rates for heart disease, diabetes and some other common killers in 2020, and experts believe a big reason may be that many people with dangerous symptoms made the lethal mistake of staying away from the hospital for fear of catching the coronavirus.

The death rates — posted online this week by federal health authorities — add to the growing body of evidence that the number of lives lost directly or indirectly to the coronavirus in the U.S.

But the data released this week showed the biggest increases in the death rates for heart disease and diabetes in at least 20 years.

The CDC also provided the numbers of deaths for some of the leading causes of mortality, including the nation's top two killers, heart disease and cancer.

The heart disease death rate — which has been falling over the long term — rose to 167 deaths per 100,000 population from 161.5 the year before.

In raw numbers, there were about 32,000 more heart disease deaths than the year before.

The 14% increase was the largest rise in the diabetes death rate in decades.

The death rate from Alzheimer’s was up 8%, Parkinson's 11%, high blood pressure 12% and stroke 4%.

The agency also did not say how many of the fatalities were people who had been infected with — and weakened by — the coronavirus but whose deaths were attributed primarily to heart disease, diabetes or other conditions.

"When hospitalization rates for COVID would go up, we would see dramatic declines in patients presenting to the emergency room with heart attacks, stroke or heart failure," Dr.

Increases in Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and West Virginia pushed the four into the group of states with the highest rates of death from heart disease, the CDC data showed.