Alcohol consumption and ischemic heart disease mortality in Russia

Abstract

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. Age-standardized sex-specific male and female IHD mortality data for the period 1980-2005 and data on overall alcoho 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°/o increase in the male IHD mortality rate and a 2.7°/o increase in the femaie 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 ciose temporal association between number of deaths from IHD and overall alcohol consumption per capita.