America’s Suicide Crisis Is Worse Than We Thought

Diabetes is a well-known health threat in the U.S., with rates that have reached epidemic levels in recent years. But now researchers are reporting that another scourge has surpassed it in terms of deadliness: suicides and deaths from drug overdoses.

Diabetes is officially ranked the seventh leading cause of death nationwide. Self-injury, as the combination of suicide and drug-related death is known, killed as many people as diabetes in 2014 and is continuing to accelerate. The primary consequence of this unchecked crisis will be decreasing U.S. life expectancy, said Ian Rockett, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University in Morgantown.