Mortality from alcohol: causes and statistics. Alcohol consumption by country - statistics

Alcoholism is the biggest social problem in the world. Due to the high toxicity of alcohol, it provokes severe poisoning and leads to the development of irreversible consequences in the human body.

Mortality from alcohol is mainly associated with accidents, dangerous situations and diseases of the physical and mental plane.

Causes leading to death from alcohol

• Alcohol intoxication.

The lethal dose of ethanol is 250-400 g, depending on age, physical condition and the food in the stomach. The time factor also influences, taking into account the period during which alcoholic beverages were taken. The smaller it is, the lower the chances of survival.

The dose also depends on addiction. Alcoholics addicted for years can drink large amounts and survive.

Intoxication occurs due to the toxic effect of ethanol and is an overdose, i.e. a state in which the body cannot cope with the amount of alcohol consumed. This can lead to respiratory failure, cardiac arrest and coma.

• Poisoning with low-quality alcohol or methanol.

Sometimes, in pursuit of revenue, unscrupulous manufacturers use hazardous raw materials and substitutes that are toxic and lead to serious poisoning, even death.

There are cases when, under the guise of ethanol, they sell methyl alcohol, which is indistinguishable in its appearance and taste. The lethal dose of this substance is only 30-100 ml. Once in the stomach, it breaks down into formaldehyde and formic acid, which are highly toxic.

Symptoms of poisoning may not appear immediately, but after several hours, which makes methanol even more dangerous for humans - if help is not provided in time, death occurs.

• Use in conjunction with medications.

Some drugs, when taken with alcohol, change properties. Ethanol multiplies the action of drugs that affect blood clotting. This can lead to the development of massive hemorrhages, including in the brain, and the most dangerous conditions leading to death.

When taken together with aspirin, gastric bleeding may begin.

You can not drink alcohol along with medications that affect the central nervous system, because. severe respiratory depression may occur. Ethanol and vasodilators lead to acute heart failure.

In other cases, alcohol can become an indirect cause of death - with hypothermia, murders, drunken fights, accidents, fires, etc.

Statistics of deaths from alcohol in Russia

According to statistics, there are more than 5 million alcohol-dependent people in Russia, which is 3.4% of the population, while only half are registered.

Intoxication due to alcohol is the cause of 3% of deaths in the Russian Federation.

However, these data do not fully reflect the picture. Often in the column "cause of death" there is a diagnosis associated with diseases, even if a large concentration of ethanol is found in the blood of the deceased. There is evidence that about 25-30% of deaths, one way or another, are associated with alcohol.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, 500,000 people die from alcohol every year. According to statistics, the largest percentage of deaths are accidents (about 30%).

Alcohol is also a cause of systemic lethal diseases:

• oncology (22%);
• liver cirrhosis (17%);
• cardiovascular diseases (14%);
• others (18%).

Alcohol kills every third man and one in six women in Russia.

The number of deaths from alcohol poisoning varies by region. The leaders in this indicator are the Kirov, Yaroslavl, Arkhangelsk and Kostroma regions, the Republic of Mari El. Despite the fact that the most "drinking" are Magadan, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Buryatia, Komi and Sakhalin.

In some regions, the death rate due to alcohol abuse is zero. These are Chechnya, Astrakhan, Rostov regions, Kalmykia, Khabarovsk Territory, as well as Sakhalin and Magadan, despite the leading positions in the ranking of "drinking" regions.

The implementation of a set of measures aimed at reducing alcohol consumption in Russia explains the improvement in statistics for 2016 compared to 2009. The number of deaths from drunkenness decreased from 68.7 to 58.6 thousand, while the volume of alcohol consumed decreased from 14.3 to 10.3 liters. per capita.

In 2017, another quarter fewer people died compared to the previous year. This is due to the ban on the sale of ethanol-containing additives and non-food alcohol-containing products.

Death from poisoning or alcohol abuse: statistics in the countries of the world

Alcohol addiction and high mortality from alcoholic beverages are a national problem not only in Russia, but also in many other countries. The World Health Organization cites figures of 2.5 million deaths annually. The European Region and Central Africa stand out in particular.

The states with the largest number of liters of pure ethanol consumed per year are Lithuania (16.2), Belarus (15), Latvia (12.8), Poland (12.2), Estonia (11). The most "little drinkers" are Pakistan, Libya, Kuwait and Mauritania, where each inhabitant accounts for only 100 ml per year.

The table shows how many deaths caused by alcohol abuse are registered per 100,000 deaths (according to the World Health Organization for 2017):

WHO has calculated the number of deaths directly related to alcohol. The real figure, taking into account the development of dangerous diseases, suicides, accidents, etc. would be much higher.

The data show a significant difference in mortality among gender groups.

Statistically, men drink (and die from alcohol) more.

For example, when ranking countries by fatalities among the female half of the population, El Salvador, which ranks first in total mortality, recedes to 28th, while Russia is the leader.

Thus, alcoholism and the mass death of people associated with it took on the scale of a worldwide disaster. Many states are implementing a policy to reduce the terrible statistics.

The main measures are aimed at restricting the population's access to alcohol-containing liquids, increasing the price level, prohibiting advertising and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

To date, alcoholism has acquired the character of an epidemic that has spread throughout the world, and every day takes new lives. A 2014 World Health Organization report found that alcohol killed more people than AIDS and tuberculosis combined. The experts found out how many people die from alcohol per year, and what are the reasons for such statistics.

Mortality from alcohol in the world

An estimated 3.3 million people died from the effects of alcoholism in 2012. To date, the situation with mortality from alcohol has not improved: the level of alcohol consumption in Europe, America and Africa has not changed significantly, but in Asia it has increased. Alcohol studies are carried out by the World Health Organization every five years. The latest statistics (2014) took into account data from 188 countries, citing the number of alcoholic beverages per population over 15 years of age. Moldova won the sad palm, where over 18 liters of alcohol per capita. Russia is fourth on the list - 15.8 liters. Not surprisingly, about 6 percent of deaths in the world are the consequences of diseases, acts of violence and accidents provoked by alcohol consumption.

Alcoholism in Russia

Over the past hundred years, rates of alcohol dependence and, consequently, mortality from it have been rapidly increasing. Rospotrebnadzor data for 2016 shows that more than five million people suffer from alcoholism in Russia, and only 1.7 percent of alcoholics are registered. The death rate from the use of alcoholic beverages per year is half a million inhabitants of the country. Alcohol abuse is directly or indirectly associated with:

• 62% suicides;
• 72% of murders;
• almost 68% of deaths from;
• 60% of lethal cases;
• over 23% of deaths from cardiovascular diseases.

Official statistics state that alcohol causes the death of 3 percent of Russians, although these figures are greatly underestimated. According to unofficial estimates, this figure is about 24 percent. Autopsies show the presence of alcohol in the blood of 70% of those who died at the age of 30-45 years. Often, pathologists do not display in the documentation that a person died because of vodka, at the request of relatives or officials who do not want to spoil the dynamics of alcoholism in their region.

Causes of high alcohol-related deaths

Of every thousand dead Russians, the death of thirteen people is associated with alcohol. This state of affairs is usually explained by the relatively low standard of living, the availability of alcoholic beverages at any time and the availability of cheap alcoholic products. However, in rich countries, alcoholism also kills a lot of people. But in Muslim countries, where alcohol is prohibited, and the level of health care is lower than in Russia, the mortality rate as a whole is also lower. In fact, in our country there are no effective tendencies for a person to be motivated not to drink at all.

In order not to replenish the sad statistics, it is better to give up alcohol as soon as possible. In the early stages of addiction, proven drugs that can be freely bought on the Internet will help to cope with this.

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Alcohol abuse is one of the pressing problems of modern world society. According to statistics, Russia has taken one of the largest slices of this liquor pie. It occupies one of the leading positions in the list of world countries, especially when it comes to states that are characterized by a developed economic economy. Mortality from alcohol in Russia is quite high and has begun to rise noticeably in the past few years. In addition, the problem of alcoholism is also relevant for other post-Soviet countries, such as the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine.

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Historical origins

Alcoholic beverages gained popularity in Tsarist Russia. Despite the fact that the state is taking serious measures to change the situation, the overall picture does not change, but rather gets worse every day or with every new sociological study.

Russia consistently ranks among the world's top five according to these distasteful rankings. However, the dynamics of the development of alcoholism, as well as the segments of the population captured by it, cause the greatest concern. According to the media, addiction to alcohol is increasingly developing among the younger generation, and the issue of teenage alcoholism is extremely acute.

Looking at the figures for alcohol consumption in the Soviet Union, you can see that there were two sharp jumps. The first of them happened in the mid-70s and by the beginning of the 80s the figure had reached 10.8 liters per annum per person. The second occurred at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, which is explained by the unstable economic and political situation in the state at that time.

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A long-standing addiction to the use of strong drinks led to the formation of a kind of tradition, which was fixed on the mental level. Certain groups of people consider drinking alcoholic beverages, if not prestigious, then at least a worthy occupation. The younger generation, which is easily influenced, picks up a bad habit that becomes more and more difficult to break over the years. Thus, an important stage in the personal formation of a person is violated, which affects both the demographic situation in the state and the social one.

Statistics by country

According to studies, 25% of the Russian population completely abandoned the use of alcohol. Almost half of the country's citizens (about 42%) allow themselves such liberties several times a year and on special occasions. 19% of respondents indulge themselves in alcohol-containing drinks 2-3 times a month, and just over 10% really abuse and drink almost every day.

There are several main factors that have a key impact on the amount of alcohol consumed by the population of a country:

Alcohol abuse

• standard of living, which includes not only the economic and political aspect, but also the socio-cultural one;
• traditions of alcohol consumption, where the preferred type of alcohol plays a special role;
• measures taken by the state to combat addiction, as well as the quality of treatment for people who suffer from it.

The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation reports on the positive dynamics of the decrease in the number of annual liters per capita. During 2015, this figure dropped from 13.5 to 11.5 liters, and by the end of 2016, the mark dropped to a value of 10 liters. It should be noted that the positive dynamics may be due, among other things, to the demographic crisis.

Up to a certain point, the number of deaths, indirectly or directly caused by alcohol, has decreased. However, the aggravation of the financial and economic situation in 2014 led to the fact that the death rate from alcohol returned to an upward trend. Alcohol kills more than 500,000 people every year, 4 out of 5 of its victims are men. 20% of all deaths among the representatives of the stronger sex, one way or another, are associated with alcoholic beverages. Using simple mathematics, the statistics of deaths from alcohol allows us to find out that a bad habit takes more than 1300 lives every day.

Comparison with other states

Alcohol can shorten human life not only directly, but also indirectly. This is a container parameter that includes both death from alcohol poisoning and from an accident on the road caused by the drunken state of the driver or pedestrian. According to scientists, one serving of alcohol takes about 7 hours of life, so people who abused it and died much earlier than the national average (65 years for men and 76 years for women) should also be taken into account when calculating statistics.

Due to the large number of factors that some research centers take into account, while others do not, the information they provide may vary slightly. The World Health Organization provides the results of the work done, allowing to estimate the death rate from alcohol in Russia and the world at the beginning of 2016. The following figures are in liters per capita:

statistics on alcoholism

1. Moldova - 18.22.
2. Czech Republic - 16.45.
3. Hungary - 16.27.
4. Russia - 15.76.
5. Ukraine - 15.60.
6. Estonia - 15.57.
7. Andorra - 15.48.
8. Romania - 15.30.
9. Slovenia - 15.19.
10. Belarus - 15.13.

Alcohol found the least popularity in countries such as:

The main consumers of alcoholic products in the world are the countries of Eastern Europe, but the level of influence of alcohol on mortality also depends on the strength of the most preferred drinks. The inhabitants of Moldova most often drink wine, the Czechs are indifferent towards beer, but the inhabitants of Russia most often prefer vodka.

Supermortality from alcohol in Russia is associated with several key factors. Drinking alcohol has long been one of the most common methods of spending leisure time, which the younger generation, willy-nilly, inherits from the elders. Russia is the world leader in terms of the level of teenage alcoholism, which prevents the proper formation of the body and, as a result, leads to a decrease in human life expectancy. Not the last role in this matter is played by the unstable economic situation, when the recovery is often replaced by a recession, which negatively affects the unemployment rate.

Together with the factor of consumption tradition, the crisis situation generates a cumulative effect. This is confirmed by statistical data, according to which the peak of alcohol abuse occurred in the early 90s, when the formation of the modern Russian state was not easy. It is also worth considering the fact that Russians more often prefer strong alcohol to low-alcohol drinks, which has an extremely negative effect on the human body.

Alcohol is a highly toxic poison that poisons all systems and organs of the human body. With prolonged use of it, irreversible degradation in the body and the development of numerous diseases occur. Most of them are incurable, leading to death. Death from alcohol abuse is the main cause of premature death of apparently healthy people.

What exactly can cause death from alcohol? Alcohol addicts die as a result of complications of various pathologies. But death due to intoxication can also lie in wait for young people who do not abuse alcohol. If the concentration of ethanol in the blood increases significantly, no doctor undertakes to predict how the body will react. Sometimes even with the use of a small dose of ethanol, a person already needs medical help.

According to statistics, about half a million people become victims of alcohol every year in Russia.

Death from alcohol intoxication is the most common cause of death due to intoxication. The dose of ethanol incompatible with life averages 250-400 g (taken on an empty stomach for a short time period). When a person's body is young and strong, even with a high concentration of ethanol, he successfully copes at first. But with each subsequent dose, it gets weaker and weaker.

According to statistics, about 500,000 people die every year as a result of alcohol intoxication in Russia.

Each accepted glass of alcohol inevitably brings the person closer to death. A fatal outcome is formed on the gradual processes of destruction of internal organs. And there comes a moment when already fatal alcohol poisoning comes (if for some reason a person, being in a state of intoxication, does not receive medical assistance on time).

Stages of alcohol intoxication

The mechanisms that bring a person to death due to intoxication are not yet fully understood. Only a chain of events preceding death as a result of intoxication was revealed:

1. A significant increase in the level of ethanol in the blood leads to a violation of the heart rhythm.
2. The heart stops working in the usual rhythm, creating insufficient blood supply to the internal organs.
3. Sudden coronary (cardiac) death (SCD) occurs.

The fatal reference point can be considered the level of alcohol concentration in the blood in the amount of 1.5-2 ppm. The lethal outcome from alcohol due to VCS at the moment in our country is 15-20% of the total mortality rate. Moreover, these statistics include people who did not even complain about any heart problems.

In the case when a person suffers from ischemia, death after drinking alcohol can occur instantly, even after a small dose of alcohol. The risk of dying the next day after drinking alcoholic beverages is very high.

Mortality due to disease

According to the statistics of Rospotrebnadzor, in our country the number of officially diagnosed alcoholics exceeds 4.5 million people. This is about 3-4% of the total population of the Russian Federation. At the same time, only 1.5% of those suffering from alcoholism are registered with drug addiction..

About 14% of women and 30% of men die every year due to diseases that have developed against the background of regular consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most common causes of death are:

• oncological diseases: 20%;
• exacerbation of existing chronic pathologies: 18%;
• alcohol-induced liver disease (mostly cirrhosis): 17%;
• diseases of the cardiovascular system caused by long-term alcohol consumption: 14%.

The negative impact of ethyl alcohol on the functioning of internal organs is revealed when alcohol is consumed, regardless of volume. And regular and prolonged intake of alcoholic beverages causes fatal degradation of internal organs.

Alcohol affects all internal organs and body systems

The following diseases pose the greatest danger to human life (they all develop due to prolonged exposure to ethanol on the body):

1. Genitourinary system: nephritis, acute urinary retention.
2. CNS: liver encephalopathy, polyneuropathy, epileptic seizures, myopathy.
3. Gastrointestinal: pancreatitis, liver failure, esophageal reflux, gastrointestinal ulcers.
4. Cardiac pathologies: arrhythmia, acute alcoholic cardiomyopathy, myocardial dystrophy.

Death from alcoholism can also occur due to the development of severe pneumonia due to a strong weakening of the immune system. Physicians noted cases of death due to exacerbation of diabetes mellitus, gout, disorders of carbohydrate and purine metabolism due to drunkenness.

Death due to accidents

The statistics of deaths from alcohol in Russia include this rather extensive list of deaths that occurred as a result of various misfortunes that occur against the background of intoxication. A person who abuses alcohol, death can lie in wait in a variety of places..

One of the most common cases of death are various falls of a drunk person. People, having lost their orientation, fall on the roadways, railway tracks, from a height and receive injuries incompatible with life.

According to statistics, the number of deaths due to various accidents resulting from intoxication varies between 25-30% of the total number of deaths. The most common cases are:

• drowning;
• carbon monoxide poisoning;
• falling from a great height;
• overheating or hypothermia;
• getting under the wheels of various vehicles;
• death in a fire, arranged by the drunk himself.

Death due to hypothermia

Severe hypothermia of the body is a common cause of the death of a drunkard. Lethal outcome occurs when the body is cooled in a temperature regime from +2⁰С to -20⁰С. When a person falls on damp ground and is motionless for a long time, the body's heat loss is rapid and colossal. This increases general hypothermia and results in rapid death.

Drinking alcohol in the cold is extremely dangerous

Drunk driving

People are also dying en masse while driving while intoxicated due to accidents provoked by them. Moreover, this is the most frequent death of young people who are in their prime. Road traffic accidents happen because of the destructive effects of alcohol on the human brain.

Ethanol, destroying neurons and stopping the work of individual brain areas, significantly inhibits the reaction. An intoxicated person needs much more time to notice the danger and adequately respond to it. Moreover, a slowdown in mental abilities and natural reflexes is observed due to the use of even low-alcohol drinks.

Death due to incompatibility of alcohol and drugs

Ethyl alcohol is absolutely incompatible with most medicines often used in the treatment of people. There are drugs that are incompatible with alcohol, causing death, unfortunately, such cases are very frequent and replenish the already sad statistics of death due to alcohol.

Death statistics due to alcohol

For the development of lethal intoxication, sometimes a glass of a low-alcohol drink taken against the background of drug treatment is enough. The greatest danger is the combination of alcohol with the following drugs:

• antipyretic: form the strongest ulcerative lesions of the digestive tract;
• cardiovascular: the risk of heart failure increases several times;
• diuretics: increase the appearance of problems in the work of the heart, contributes to the development of pancreatitis;
• analgesics: form the strongest tachycardia of an acute form, which leads to heart problems;
• hypnotics and sedatives: provoke severe drowsiness, can cause a coma and death;
• antibiotics: they become the causes of the development of a disulfiramopod reaction, against the background of severe intoxication, internal organs fail.

Complete refusal of alcohol during drug treatment becomes the most important condition for safety during the course of a therapeutic course and a guarantee of a person's cure. But a certain number of people forget about this strict rule every year, and fill up the horrific statistics of mortality records.

Particularly dangerous are some individual drugs that are incompatible with alcohol, leading to death. A fatal outcome can occur even when taking one pill with a light beer. Check out the list of drugs that become fatal when used while intoxicated:

Death due to surrogates

Even a high price, exclusive labels do not always become proof of the quality of alcoholic products. You can stumble upon a deadly surrogate even in reputable markets. By consuming such alcoholic beverages, a person is at mortal risk, because instead of ethyl alcohol, they use methyl alcohol. This compound is detrimental to the human body.

According to statistics, about 40-45,000 people die every year from surrogate alcohol intoxication.

A large number of deaths are caused by surrogate alcohol poisoning

Methyl alcohol is prohibited for use in the food industry, it is successfully used in gas and fuel production. Based on it, various pesticides and solvents are created. But due to the fact that methanol is practically indistinguishable from ethanol, underground dealers create cheap alcohol based on it. In addition to methyl alcohol, people are poisoned due to the addition to alcohol:

• methylated spirits;
• ethylene glycol;
• wood alcohol.

The use of alcohol surrogates, even in small doses, causes severe alcohol poisoning. And, in the case of a weakened organism, existing chronic diseases, death due to the consumption of surrogate alcohol comes to a person almost instantly. People are dying, not having time to wait for the arrival of doctors.

All persons suffering from chronic alcoholism, characterized by extreme weakening of the immune system. On the basis of this, drinkers sharply increase their susceptibility to various pathologies and dangerous infections. With alcoholism, people die, already being seriously ill, experiencing unbearable torment.

For what reason the death of an alcohol addict will occur, sometimes it becomes not so important. Indeed, in the presence of this disease, especially in its last stages, the patient loses all connection with the outside world. Does not perceive loved ones, does not understand himself, becoming completely inadequate.

Therefore, the problem of alcoholization should be addressed immediately, as soon as the first alarming bells appeared. Without postponing for later, and even more so, do not let the development of alcohol addiction take its course.

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The demographic crisis in Russia

Let's talk about the statistics of alcoholism in Russia. The depopulation of the population of the Russian Federation observed since 1992 is not only the result of a drop in the birth rate, but also a consequence of a significant number of deaths. It is the unusually high level of premature mortality in the Russian population that continues to be the most acute and topical problem, making a significant contribution to the demographic crisis in our country and to average life expectancy.

Therefore, the mortality rate in Russia, which is 2-3 times higher than similar indicators in economically developed countries, is interpreted as supermortality. At the same time, a significant number of cases of early death are directly or indirectly related to alcohol consumption.

Alcohol and mortality in Russia

Alcohol with mortality in Russia. What do the statistics say? According to A.V. Nemtsov, about a third of all deaths in our country are more or less related to alcohol. In different regions, alcohol mortality ranges from 30 to 46%, and the national average is 37% of all deaths.

In Siberia and the Far East, alcohol mortality exceeds 40% of total mortality. Meanwhile, mortality from violent causes is the main and probably the most obvious source of death of people, in which alcohol is sold. They are responsible for 72% of murders, 42% of suicides, 68% of deaths in cirrhosis of the liver. Naturally, deaths from alcohol poisoning are 100% related to it. This estimate of alcohol mortality is 10 times higher than the official data of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, which do not exceed 3% of the total mortality of the population.

According to other researchers Kharchenko V.I. and others), currently alcohol mortality, together with the victims of heavy drinkers and alcoholics, in total does not exceed 25% of adult mortality. At the same time, the total alcohol losses in Russia in the period after 2002 amounted to an average of 16.3% of all deaths per year. Among people of working age, alcohol mortality in 2001 ranged from 33.7 to 42.1%, which 3.5 times higher than in the United States and other economically developed countries.

It should be noted that the demographic consequences of alcohol abuse are simply catastrophic. First of all, this is the premature mortality of about 400 thousand Russians annually, this is the reason for a serious decrease in life expectancy, especially among men. The alcohol problems of modern society make a significant contribution not only to the decline in the birth rate, but also to the deterioration of children's health, especially mental health.

Alcohol-related mortality is the most severe consequence of alcohol abuse. It is safe to say that our country occupies the sad first place in the world in terms of mortality from alcohol-related causes, far exceeding those of other countries.

Regional analysis of alcohol mortality statistics showed that it increases from south to north and from west to east. This pattern is typical for the entire European space - more northern countries and territories have more severe alcohol problems in the context of the state's restrictive policy.

drinking pattern

In addition to the level of alcohol consumption, one should not forget about changing drinking patterns when strong alcoholic drinks begin to prevail over low-alcohol drinks in the structure of consumption, which contributes to the emergence of acute problems associated with alcohol.

The consumption of strong alcohol (40 degrees and more) in Russia was 70-82% in different periods. It is the consumption of a large amount of strong alcohol, or the so-called northern type of consumption, which is most characteristic of the population of our country, that leads to the creation of a high concentration of alcohol in the blood and damage to internal organs. In this connection, there are also high mortality rates from accidental alcohol poisoning.

The statistics of alcoholism in other countries of the world shows that the consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (as a percentage of the total amount of alcohol consumed) does not reach 30%. For example, in Finland - 29%, in Canada - 28.7%, in the USA - 27.3%, in Sweden - 23.8%, in Germany - 21.4%, in Norway - 20.5%, in the UK - 18.3%.

Alcohol falsification in Russia

Another major problem in Russia is falsification of the quality of a significant part of alcoholic beverages. A large amount of counterfeit alcohol, which is insufficiently purified synthetic or hydrolytic alcohol, began to enter the domestic trading network.

In the second half of the 1990s, the illegal turnover of such alcohol reached 60%. As a result, in 1992-1996 there was an explosive increase in the number of alcohol poisoning. Therefore, the rate of deaths from alcohol poisoning in Russia was 65 times higher European averages.

Alcohol and murder

According to various statistics 50-80% of homicides in the world are caused by drinking alcohol. In the US, this figure is 50-55%. In European countries, approximately 55% of violent crimes, including murders, were committed while intoxicated: Belgium - 40%, Estonia - 60%, Hungary - 35.4%, Norway - 80%, Poland - 56%, Sweden - 86%. Close figures (55%) are given for Scotland and France.

According to the latest data of domestic psychiatrists, in Russia, more than 80% of murders are committed while intoxicated. The proportion of drunken crimes among registered homicides increased from 46.5% to 67.8% between 2002 and 2006.

Alcohol and suicide

Years of study links between suicide and alcohol consumption at the level of small groups in different countries allowed the researchers to formulate some general conclusions:

1) a significant proportion of alcoholics and drunkards commit suicide,

2) for young men - heavy drinkers, the risk of suicide is 5 times higher, and for alcoholics - 9 times higher than for the rest of the population;

3) there are significantly more alcoholics and heavy drunkards among suicides than people with other diagnoses;

4) alcohol is found in the blood of a large part of suicides.

At the same time, Russia is one of the countries with a high dependence of the level of suicides on the level of alcohol consumption. It has been proven that an increase in per capita alcohol consumption in the Russian Federation by 1 liter adds 8 male suicides for every 100,000 men and 1 female suicide for every 100,000 women.

Meanwhile, researchers in works carried out in various regions of Russia claim that at least 30% of suicides (and a maximum of three-quarters of men and two-thirds of women) have alcohol in their blood.

In other countries, there has also been a significant incidence of alcohol consumption in suicides. In Sweden, alcohol was detected in the blood of 35% of suicides, in Finland - in 30.5%, in Brazil - in 32.2%, in New York it was detected in the blood in 33% of such cases.

Studies have confirmed the equal importance of alcohol in the implementation of suicidal intentions for representatives of different ethnic groups living in the same territory. At the same time, alcohol was found not only in those who had some kind of alcohol problems (was registered, drank heavily, etc.), but also in those about whom relatives and friends said: “I drank like everyone else,” or even “Almost did not drink.”

It is known that depression and subdepression often occur after massive drinking, not only in alcoholics, but also in drunkards, not always heavy ones. This means that not only alcohol abuse affects the prevalence of suicide, suicide can also be provoked by "simple" drinking.

Mortality and diseases of the circulatory system

It is known that in modern Russia supermortality is largely due to diseases of the circulatory system. Mortality in our country from diseases of the circulatory system 3 times higher the level of mortality in economically developed countries, and such an excess of mortality is "artificial" in nature and is associated with the peculiarities of accounting and diagnostics, namely with the so-called default policy on alcoholism and alcohol abuse.

People who die from the somatic consequences of alcoholism, especially if they maintain a good social status during their lifetime and have a family, are almost never diagnosed with alcohol dependence, they are exposed to " mask diagnoses”, first of all, diseases of the cardiovascular system are diagnosed. Therefore, these figures in the Russian Federation are underestimated by approximately 15-20 times..

The results of a special correlation analysis convincingly demonstrate that mortality from diseases of the circulatory system is directly dependent on the level of alcohol consumption per capita and its quality. High consumption of counterfeit alcohol turns risk factors for circulatory system diseases into risk factors for death, and also leads to an enormous increase in other somatic pathologies, including pancreatitis, hepatitis and liver cirrhosis.

The problem of defining alcohol-related mortality

Determining the impact of alcohol on mortality remains problematic. IN International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD-10) there are nosological units in which death is associated with the use of alcohol. For example, there is no doubt that a person will die as a result of the following causes of death: mental and behavioral disorders caused by alcohol use; degeneration of the nervous system caused by alcohol; alcoholic polyneuropathy; alcoholic myopathy; alcoholic cardiomyopathy; alcoholic liver disease; pancreatitis of alcoholic etiology; fetal alcohol syndrome; accidental (deliberate or with indeterminate intentions) poisoning (exposure) with alcohol.

At the same time, for a long period, statistical bodies took into account only three nosologies - mortality due to alcoholism, alcoholic liver disease, poisoning by alcohol or its surrogates. Only since 2005 have additional data been collected on deaths due to alcoholic cardiomyopathy, alcoholic pancreatitis, and alcoholic degeneration of the nervous system. The importance of alcohol in cerebrovascular accidents is still not taken into account.

As a result, after the start of accounting, it was found that mortality from alcoholic cardiomyopathy in Russia is more than 100 times higher than in the USA or France, and even in Finland (a country with a northern type of alcohol consumption), where the mortality rate is about 10 times lower than in the Russian Federation. The death rate from alcohol poisoning in our country generally seems incomparable with the indicators of these states.

Given the above, it can be summarized that the existing level and structure of alcohol consumption in the Russian Federation, the low quality of alcoholic products cause enormous damage to people's health, contributing to their degradation and causing a further increase in the so-called alcohol-related mortality in the country.