According to latest figures, there are more than 160 million people in China with high blood pressure. Over 70 million more adults now have high blood pressure compared with the figure years ago.

In the capital Beijing, 3 million are registered as having hypertension, the highest rate in the country.

Approximately 3 million Chinese experience symptoms associated with high blood pressure each year. There are more sufferers in north than in the south of the country and there are more males than females.

What is more, mortality from the extreme version of the condition, malignant hypertension, or secondary complications, is on the rise in rural areas. More and more young people are beginning to develop the condition. However, cure and control rates are very good at 24.7 percent and 6.1 percent respectively.

According to statistics from Beijing, 25 percent of the capital's residents over the age of 15 have the condition as do more than 50 percent of middle-aged people and the elderly. Only 35.6 percent of the patients require regular medicinal treatment and the control rate is quite low at 7.6 percent.

By People's Daily Online