About one in six mainlanders has high blood pressure, but because there is little public awareness of the disease fewer than 10 per cent of sufferers have their problem under control.
Of 230 million hypertension patients, only 48.4 per cent know that they have it, 38.5 per cent are taking medication for it, and 9.5 per cent have reduced their blood pressure to an acceptable level, according to last year's Ministry of Health prevention and treatment guidelines obtained by Guo Jizhen, a senior health education professor at Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital.
The figures are a big improvement on those in 2002, when 30.2 per cent knew they had it, 24.7 per cent took medication and 6.1 per cent had it under control, but the latest figures are still low compared with last year's US totals - about 80 per cent, 75 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.
Every year on the mainland, 3 million people die of heart disease and blood vessel problems - about one third of the total deaths. Half of these cardiovascular deaths are hypertension-related. More than 7 million people suffer a stroke, according to the Report on Cardiovascular Diseases in China (2008-2009).
Guo said many mainlanders did not care about blood pressure. Even if they develop hypertension, they think it will not affect their everyday lives if symptoms are not serious.
'Some people diagnosed with hypertension don't even have medicine, and their belief is that since this disease is a lifelong one, it's better to take drugs later rather than earlier. Many Chinese believe every medicine has side effects, and they fear more drugs will hurt their health.'
Many did not have their blood pressure tested regularly, Guo said.