A quarter of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-fifties and their passion for alcohol...
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A quarter of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-fifties and their passion for alcohol - particularly vodka - is largely to blame according to a new report.
A study of more than 150,000 people found extraordinarily high premature death rates among males, some of whom admitted drinking three or more bottles a week of Russia's favourite tipple.
David Zaridze, from the Russian
Cancer Research Centre in Moscow, one of the research units behind the study said: "No single country has ever recorded such statistics. Such figures only appear in war time. I call it a demographical crisis."
For this study, published in the Lancet medical journal,
researchers asked 151,000 people how much vodka they drank, and whether they smoked, then monitored them for up to a decade.
Some blame poor social conditions for the situation but others feel it is a storm in a shot glass.
"Excessive drinking is bad, of course. But this being a major cause of death is complete nonsense," said one Muscovite.
"People drink a lot perhaps because of desperation. If
there are no jobs what would you do? Drink," commented one woman.
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