Alcohol and health: what is good for the French may not be for the Russians.

The countries of central and eastern Europe are character ised by some of the world's highest premature death rates in middle aged men.12 A considerable part of the epidemic of man made diseases observed in recent decades in this region is accounted for by diseases caused by alcohol.35 In general, an increase in alcohol consumption was observed in central and eastern European countries after the second world war, and negative health effects (including liver cir rhosis, deaths from external causes, etc) accompanied this.25 After 1980, changes in the economic and political situa tion in several countries, at different times, lead to striking fluctuations in alcohol consumption.4 As a result, a series of extraordinary natural experiments in the health effects of alcohol were conducted among the populations of eastern