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 Interview with Alexandre SidorenkoExcerpts Women TLC: I was very surprised at the recent conference concerning your own country, Ukraine, that the life span of men in that country is only fifty-eight years old. It seems to be that women even in Eastern European countries live longer as we already alluded to, but it would seem that would be a tremendous economic strain that these women are not on their own. And what do they do, when they don’t have any money. What would you say is going to happen in the Eastern European countries, Dr. Sidorenko?Dr. Sidorenko: Well that is a very difficult question and as you said this question is very close to my heart. The situation now is really has all the feature of being the democratic catastrophe in that part of the world, particularly in Russia and the Ukraine. And as you already noted, in some parts of the Ukraine the life expectancy for a man dropped to fifty-eight years, and the male-female life expectancy is more than eleven years. And in some parts of Russia, the situation is even worse. Let me just say one thing, we don’t know why it’s happened. We may assume that it is, and it is definitely related to economic and social associated with the transition from the central plant to the market. That is a very general statement. In fact we don’t know what are the immediate causes that behind this population death in that part of the world. We really don’t know why. Alcohol consumption, smoking, occupational hazards have always been quoted. It is quite a good sign that we don’t know the exact answer which one of them. There is also very good reason to think that this population death has started to widen some years ago, the dying out of the population the most productive segment of the society, male at the age of thirty-five plus. And once again the cause of it was unknown. This catastrophic situation is far beyond the concerns of only Russians and Ukrainians. It points to the effect that for some reason once again, unknown, the aging population seems to be extremely vulnerable. A sort unexpected turmoil that make a cure within the country of the region. So what you have there in that part of the world is some sort of sad, but important model to stir up the waters behind this population. And I believe this is self-concerned of scientist and publishing makers all over the world not just in Ukraine and Russia. Women TLC: There are many problems, the male whose life-span has dropped considerably and then the women who are living much longer. And it’s economics plus health. Is there any model about health issues, let’s say and economic issues that a model would be used specifically for Russia as opposed to the rest of the world or are they still investigating that? Dr. Sidorenko: Well as a matter of fact it’s some sort of paradoxical situation and no serious investigations have been undertaken so far. And the reason is very simple, as a matter of fact, it’s an economic reason, there’re several quite famous research centers relating to gerontology, biology, sociology of aging in the countries of the former Soviet Union that that they lost their resources, and they’re losing their human resources as many scientists just think of emigrating abroad. They’re not getting the salary, the equipment is non-existent and the institution does not have monitors that endorse the equipment. In this particular situation I believe it’s a very good reason for the rest to come together with pharmaceutical research to study that problem.
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