Passion for vodka kills Russian men in their thousands

MOSCOW: In spite of years of alcohol policy reforms involving a mixture of higher taxes and tougher laws aimed at curbing drinking, the battle to ensure sobriety in Russia appears far from being won.

Though more recently, since Russian alcohol policy reforms were introduced in 2006, consumption of spirits has fallen by about a third and so has the risk of death before age 55, researchers say - the risk is “still substantial”. According to research published on Friday, a quarter of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-fifties and their passion for alcohol - particularly vodka - is largely to blame.

A study of more than 150,000 people found extraordinarily high premature death rates among male Russians, some of whom reported drinking three or more bottles a week of the potent clear spirit.

Heavy drinkers

Perhaps unsurprisingly, deaths among heavy drinkers were mainly due to alcohol poisoning, accidents, violence and suicide, as well as diseases such as throat and liver cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia, pancreatitis and liver disease.

“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... was vodka,” said Richard Peto of Britain’s Oxford University, who worked on the study published in the Lancet medical journal.

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The researchers, including David Zaridze from the Russian Cancer Research Centre in Moscow, noted that whereas British death rates between age 15 and 54 have been falling steadily since 1980, mainly because so many people there have stopped smoking, Russian death rates in this age range have fluctuated sharply.

This, they add, is approximately in line with alcohol consumption.