International Journal of Epidemiology, Advance Access published online on September 29, 2008
Zaridze and colleagues1 demonstrated in their large autopsy study that, in recent years, alcohol has been a main underlying determinant of mortality in Russia. They also shed light on the role of drinking patterns, as a substantial part of death certificates with unspecified cardiovascular causes of death (i.e. disease categories labelled ‘other’ or ‘not classified’) had lethal, or potentially lethal, concentrations of ethanol in blood. These unspecified cardiovascular causes of death, together with external causes of death also markedly impacted by alcohol, were identified as
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