How important is stress in a fight against COVID-19?

Causes of Deaths

Three of the world’s top causes of deaths are cardiovascular disease, dementia, and diabetes.
Their top risk factors are high blood pressure, low physical activity, smoking, high blood sugar, obesity, diet high in sodium.
These risk factors share one primary cause: stress.
(Some, like high cholesterol, are 0, only because there’s no data available.)

Risk Factors

Three of the world’s top causes of deaths are cardiovascular disease, dementia, and diabetes.
Their top risk factors are high blood pressure, low physical activity, smoking, high blood sugar, obesity, diet high in sodium.
These risk factors share one primary cause: stress.
(Some, like high cholesterol, are 0, only because there’s no data available.)

The Elderly

No one is more vulnerable to the dangers of stress than those already most vulnerable to COVID-19: the elderly.
Far more of the elderly die, for example, from cardiovascular disease than does any other age group (graph on the left).
They have been told COVID-19 won’t end for years – many of them are in their 80s and 90s. Most have been strictly isolated, with no friendly faces checking in.

Additional Deaths from Stress

Say the stress causes the deaths from cardiovascular disease, dementia, and diabetes to increase by only 10%. That’s 10,316,749 lives lost in addition to those lost from COVID-19 (hover over the bar to see today’s number).
The real count is likely to be even higher, as the stress affects many who would otherwise not have developed the risk factors.

References