(Release at 7 p.m., EDT,)
LONDON (Reuter) - More Russian men appear to be drinking themselves to
an early grave since communism collapsed, researchers reported Friday.
Russian and British researchers working together found that alarmingly high mortality rates in Russian men coincided with a sharp rise in alcohol consumption.
David Leon of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, working with colleagues at the Center of Demography and Human Ecology in Moscow, did a careful study of Russian death rates.
``According to published data, between 1984 and 1994 mortality rates in Russia initially underwent a rapid decline, followed by an even steeper increase,'' they wrote in the Lancet medical journal.
``Although factors such as nutrition and health services may be involved, the evidence is that substantial changes in alcohol consumption over the period could plausibly explain the main features of the mortality fluctuations.''
By 1994, male life expectancy at birth was 57.6 years, a fall of 6.2 years since 1990, the report said. Russian women lived far longer -- an average of 71 years in 1996, although this is sharply down from 75 in the mid-1980s.
Accidents and violence were the biggest causes, they said, but pronounced effects were also seen for deaths from infections, circulatory and respiratory diseases, they added.
A dramatic fall in living standards which began in the last years of communist rule and uncertainty about the future in the new capitalist world have led to a sharp rise in alcohol consumption in Russia.
The Russian government figures show average annual consumption of alcohol had more than doubled from 1990 to 1995 and reached 27.3 pints of pure alcohol per head of the population.
June official statistics showed men in Russia were less likely to reach the age of 60 than they were 100 years ago. They found only 54 percent of Russian men older than 16 were likely to make it past 60, compared to 56 percent at the end of the 19th century.
Accidents and poisoning by low-quality alcoholic drinks were the two leading killers of men aged between 16 and 60.
Britain's Department for International Development (DFID -- formerly the Overseas Development Association), which helped fund the study, expressed alarm at the statistics.
``This is really disturbing news,'' the DFID's chief health adviser, David Nabarro, said in a statement.
``It implies that young adult men in Russia are responding to the difficulties they face through heavy alcohol use.''
The finding was potentially relevant to all societies where people reacted to stress by consuming alcohol, Nabarro added.
``The study reveals that because alcohol use is a part of normal culture, many men do not appreciate the damage they are causing to themselves through drinking.''
© Copyright 1997, Reuters News Service
