The staggering figure is almost triple the number of people who die from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
Dr. Runlin Gao, a cardiologist at Fu Wai Hospital said, "In China, deaths from cardiovascular disease have skyrocketed alongside the country's rapid economic development, making it the No. 1 killer - fueled by smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity."
The reasons for the increasing numbers include changing lifestyles and easy access to cheap and fatty foods.
Dean Jamison, a health economics professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said making the fast food less accessible is the way to help lower cardiovascular disease risk factors as it is difficult to persuade people to change their lifestyles.
