Vodka Blamed For Soaring Death Rates Among Russian Men

Russian men should watch how much vodka they consume as a latest study claims the strong drink is the main culprit for high rate of early death in the country.

Researchers at the University of Oxford confirm that vodka is the main cause for the rising death rates of men in Russia. Those who gulp down large amounts of Vodka are susceptible to early death. The conclusion is based on a 15 year study that was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, European Union and WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The study reports that nearly 25 percent of Russian men die before age 55 when compared to just seven percent of U.K. men. This drastic difference is mainly due to the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes.

With this finding, experts suggest the need for strict alcohol and tobacco policy in Russia. The lifespan of a Russian man is about 64 years. Russia is one among the 50 countries that have the lowest life expectancy in the world.

Reported as the largest study to analyze effects of alcohol in Russian men, the researchers interviewed 151,000 people, who were asked to report the amount of vodka they consumed. They were followed for a decade. During the course of the study, 8000 deaths were reported.

Earlier, about five years before the current study, researchers followed up families of 49,000 people who died in three different Russian cities: Barnaul, Byisk and Tomsk. The families were questioned about the deceased's drinking habit.

Both the studies indicated that the risk of dying early was high in men who drank three or more half litre bottles of vodka a week when compared to men who drank less than one bottle a week.

"Russian death rates have fluctuated wildly over the past 30 years as alcohol restrictions and social stability varied under Presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin, and the main thing driving these wild fluctuations in death was vodka,' says Professor Sir Richard Peto of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford.

The 20-year risk of death for smokers between ages 35-54 was 35 percent for men whose weekly consumption of vodka was three or more bottles. For men drinking less than one bottle a week, the 20-year death risk was just 16 percent.

Other reasons for death among heavy drinkers were suicide, alcohol poisoning, violence, and deadly diseases like throat cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis, live disease and heart disease.

Dr Jurgen Rehm from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada writes, 'On its own, the overall volume of alcohol consumed in Russia, albeit high, cannot explain the high alcohol attributable mortality; it is the combination of high overall volume with the specific pattern of episodic binges that is necessary to explain the high level and fluctuating trends of total and alcohol-attributed mortality in Russia.'

The study was documented in the journal Lancet.