Living in China: cancer death rate rises 80 percent in 30 years

Caijing Magazine shares some startling statistics on cancer in China, where smoking, poor diet, water pollution and environmental problems have caused the nation’s cancer death rate to rise 80 percent in the past 30 years. The statistics come from an exhaustive survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology. According to the survey, cancer is now accountable for 25 percent of all urban deaths and 21 percent of all rural deaths.

Although the rising cancer death rate has long been attributed to an aging population, this recent survey still found that the nation’s lung cancer death rate rose 261 percent after adjusting statistics for age.

Smoking is the biggest contributing factor to cancer death rates in China, which boasts 350 million smokers and another 500 million affected by second-hand smoke. Combined with the air pollution from emission-producing cars, lung cancer is the No. 1 killer in cities, with the World Health Organization estimating that lung cancer in all of China may reach 1 million cases annually by 2025. Other deathly factors are obesity–bad diet is second only to smoking as a cancer cause in China– and polluted drinking water.