More than 17 percent of male fatalities in 2005 were caused by alcohol poisoning and alcohol-related illness. The rise is largely attributed to a spike in alcohol-related problems among 15 to 64-year-old men.
According to Statistics Finland, booze has knocked coronary disease off the top rung as Finland’s biggest killer. Accidents are still in third place, but many of these are also linked with alcohol.
The biggest killer of women is still breast cancer, which accounts for 10.7 percent of fatalities. Even for women, however, alcohol-related death came in a close second at 10.6 percent. Accidents were also the third largest cause of death.
Suicides were the fourth-largest killer of both genders.