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Authors
Rippe, James M.UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of MedicineDocument Type
EditorialPublication Date
2021-02-01Keywords
COVID-19lifestyle medicine
lifestyle-related diseases
Infectious Disease
Public Health
Virus Diseases
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The COVID-19 virus has rightly taken center stage for our entire nation. Despite the devastating consequences of COVID-19 I believe there may be a silver lining for the medical community. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to stop and consider how precious life is and what we are called upon to do as physicians. With this in mind, I believe that this may be a propitious time to examine what I refer to as “America's Silent Epidemic.” For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over 650,000 individuals in the United States will die of heart disease this year. The National Institutes of Health estimates that obesity each year causes over 300,000 fatalities. Diabetes is listed as the cause of death for over 270,000 individuals each year. Over 480,000 people in the United States die each year from cigarette smoking or passive exposure to cigarette smoke. When you add up these largely preventable diseases, this silent epidemic takes over 4 times as many American lives each year as COVID-19.Source
Rippe JM. The Silent Epidemic. Am J Med. 2021 Feb;134(2):164-165. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.09.028. Epub 2020 Oct 25. PMID: 33228951; PMCID: PMC7585628. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.09.028Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/27407PubMed ID
33228951Related Resources
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.09.028