Pity the hearts beating in Russian chests. The death rate from heart disease for men and women of all ages in Russia is six times higher than in France, according to data on heart and stroke deaths from 52 nations in Europe and northern Asia.
Death rates are steadily declining across the entire area studied. But heart disease is still the region's biggest killer overall, and pockets of high mortality remain. In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, for example, men in their early fifties are more likely to die from heart disease than French men in their late seventies.
"The traditional explanation is that the rates increased after the fall of the Soviet Union," says Mike Rayner at the University of Oxford, who led the study. High unemployment followed, as did huge increases in the consumption of alcohol and fatty food.
Things are improving, but slowly for the most part. According to the most recent 10-year-long chunks of data available for each of the countries involved, death rates from heart disease decreased by 13 and 16 per cent in Russian and Ukrainian men, respectively, but by just 1 per cent in men from Lithuania and Tajikistan. Georgia is leading the way, with rates decreasing by 62 per cent in 10 years.
Journal reference: European Heart Journal, DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehu299
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