A quarter of Russian men die before the age of 55, according to a new study in The Lancet. If this sounds high, it is. In contrast, just 7% of men in the UK die before 55. The new large-scale study tracked Russian men over time, finding that much of the high death rate was due to alcohol and alcohol-related causes. And although the vodka-related mortality rate was always fairly high in Russia, some interesting patterns emerged—namely, that the death rate waxed and waned according to how government alcohol policies changed over the years.
The new study asked 151,000 living men about their alcohol use while they were still living. The men were followed for a decade, and researchers tracked how many died, and from what cause.
It turned out that the risk of death for 35-55 year old men consuming three or more half-liter bottles per week was 35%. This jumped to a whopping 64% for men between 55 and 74. The authors say that their “study strongly reinforces other evidence that vodka is a major cause of the high risk of premature death in Russian adults.”
For more moderate consumers between ages 35 and 55, the story was less grim. Men who drank less than a bottle per week had only a 16% chance of dying. Those who drank 1 to 2.9 bottles per week had a 20% risk of dying.
The causes of death? Most were due to alcohol poisoning, accidents, violence, suicide, and to another group of diseases, including throat cancer, liver cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia, pancreatitis, liver disease, acute ischemic heart disease, and other unspecified medical conditions.
The big caveat is that just about all of the men were smokers; the authors say that in Russia heavy drinking and heavy smoking are almost inextricably linked, which makes the situation even more difficult to pull apart. But there’s also hope, the authors say.
What’s interesting is that alcohol-related deaths fluctuated with the times. After Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 alcohol restrictions, the authors point out, alcohol consumption—and deaths—fell by 25%. But after the fall of communism, both went way up. And after the alcohol policy reforms in 2006, consumption was reduced again by about a third.
“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,” said study author Sir Richard Peto. “This has been shown in retrospective studies, and now we’ve confirmed it in a big, reliable prospective study.”
And the study may have even underestimated the effect, according to the authors, since drinking habits likely shifted over time.
As study author David Zaridze told the BBC, much of the problem is due to the kind of drinking the men engage in. “They binge drink. That’s the main problem. It’s the pattern of drinking not the per-capita amount they are drinking… They sometimes say it’s because of the cold weather but this is just an excuse. This is the nation’s lifestyle that needs to change.”
Luckily, the trends suggest that change is possible, and it can happen relatively quickly. “The significant decline in Russian mortality rates following the introduction of moderate alcohol controls in 2006 demonstrates the reversibility of the health crisis from hazardous drinking,” said Zaridze. “People who drink spirits in hazardous ways greatly reduce their risk of premature death as soon as they stop.”
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