Chinanews, Beijing, Oct. 26 – Yang Gonghuan, a researcher from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a forum on Wednesday that nearly 80 percent of people had died of chronic diseases in China. He warned that chronic diseases have posed a great threat to social development and people’s health.Yang said that the increase of the aging poverty-stricken population has caused more and more people to suffer from chronic disease. He also revealed that 7 million people in China became high blood pressure sufferers annually between 1991 and 2002, and this number was only 1 million between 1950 and 1970, 3 million between 1980 and 1990. Incidence of diabetes in many Chinese metropolises has increased to 6.07 percent.Meanwhile, more and more people in China suffer from overweight or obesity, and less than one third of adults in China take regular exercises. Residents enjoy watching TV everyday, many of them for 2-3 hours running. More men indulge in smoking now than ever before, making women and children become passive smokers.Yang said new methods should be introduced to deal with the increase of patients of chronic diseases.