It has been repeatedly emphasized that alcohol provides the most plausible explanation for both the high rate of cardiovascular mortality rate and its dramatic fluctuations in Russia over recent decades, while other traditional risk factors identified in epidemiological studies have little predictive value. The aim of this study was to examine the relation between alcohol consumption and ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality rates in Russia. A ge-standardized sex-specific male and female IHD mortality data for the period 1980-2005 and data on overall alcohol consumption were analyzed by means of ARIMA time series analysis. The results of the analysis showed that alcohol consumption was significantly associated with both male and female IHD mortality rates: a 1-liter increase in overall alcohol consumption would result in a 3.9% increase in the male IHD mortality rate and a 2.7% increase in the female IHD mortality rate. As a conclusion, the results of this study provide indirect support for the hypothesis that the drastic fluctuations in IHD mortality in Russia over recent decades are related to alcohol, as indicated by the close temporal association between number of deaths from IHD and overall alcohol consumption per capita.
BACKGROUND: In Russia, tobacco and alcohol use by adolescents are serious problems. In Finland, as in many other European countries, alcohol use is a growing concern.
AIMS: This study aimed to find out whether similar environmental factors predict adolescents' alcohol use among 15-year old adolescents in two politically and economically different cultures: in the Pitkaranta district in Russian Karelia and in eastern Finland.
METHODS: Research data gathered by self-administered questionnaires from the second North Karelia Youth Study and the Pitkaranta Youth Study were analysed. Path models using the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach were constructed to test whether similar path structures fit for boys and girls in both countries, and to test whether regression coefficients are similar between the cultures and by gender.
RESULTS: The results showed that alcohol use by family members and best friend is positively related to adolescents' alcohol use both directly and indirectly. The best friend's alcohol use was the most important predictor of adolescents' own alcohol use in every sub-sample. When indirect influences were also identified, the significance of parents' and siblings' alcohol use, in addition to alcohol use by the best friends, was strongly supported.
CONCLUSIONS: The results highlighted the importance of the process of peer selection for adolescents' choices, and the importance of offering support to the parents and to the health personnel working with children and adolescents.
BACKGROUND: Russian adults have extraordinarily high rates of premature death. Retrospective enquiries to the families of about 50 000 deceased Russians had found excess vodka use among those dying from external causes (accident, suicide, violence) and eight particular disease groupings. We now seek prospective evidence of these associations. METHODS: In three Russian cities (Barnaul, Byisk, and Tomsk), we interviewed 200 000 adults during 1999-2008 (with 12 000 re-interviewed some years later) and followed them until 2010 for cause-specific mortality. In 151 000 with no previous disease and some follow-up at ages 35-74 years, Poisson regression (adjusted for age at risk, amount smoked, education, and city) was used to calculate the relative risks associating vodka consumption with mortality. We have combined these relative risks with age-specific death rates to get 20-year absolute risks. FINDINGS: Among 57 361 male smokers with no previous disease, the estimated 20-year risks of death at ages 35-54 years were 16% (95% CI 15-17) for those who reported consuming less than a bottle of vodka per week at baseline, 20% (18-22) for those consuming 1-2.9 bottles per week, and 35% (31-39) for those consuming three or more bottles per week; trend p<0.0001. The corresponding risks of death at ages 55-74 years were 50% (48-52) for those who reported consuming less than a bottle of vodka per week at baseline, 54% (51-57) for those consuming 1-2.9 bottles per week, and 64% (59-69) for those consuming three or more bottles per week; trend p<0.0001. In both age ranges most of the excess mortality in heavier drinkers was from external causes or the eight disease groupings strongly associated with alcohol in the retrospective enquiries. Self-reported drinking fluctuated; of the men who reported drinking three or more bottles of vodka per week who were reinterviewed a few years later, about half (185 of 321) then reported drinking less than one bottle per week. Such fluctuations must have substantially attenuated the apparent hazards of heavy drinking in this study, yet self-reported vodka use at baseline still strongly predicted risk. Among male non-smokers and among females, self-reported heavy drinking was uncommon, but seemed to involve similar absolute excess risks. INTERPRETATION: This large prospective study strongly reinforces other evidence that vodka is a major cause of the high risk of premature death in Russian adults. FUNDING: UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, European Union, WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer.