rank among the top 12 leading causes of death in the U.S., the gap becomes more narrow with each passing year.
In 2015, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis ranked 12th in the leading causes of death, which killed 40,326 Americans. In comparison, 33,031 had died of an opioid overdose during that year.
The last time a single factor had such a dramatic effect on the American life expectancy was in the 1990s, at the peak of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.
