Posted: Submitted by wtanaka (648) on Tue, 2005-07-26 16:16. | Subject: Suicide #1 (Ages 20-35) in China

When I saw the last sentence and think about how many people I see smoking here.....

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?rid=255c87b5bfc2ef7b

Suicide is the number one cause of death among people aged 20 to 35 in China, where an estimated quarter of a million people a year, or 685 a day, take their lives.

The China Daily reports that each year an additional 2.5 million to 3.5 million Chinese unsuccessfully attempt suicide, which stood as the fifth major cause of death among the country's 1.3 billion people.

Beijing psychiatrist Liu Hong was quoted in the newspaper, saying that young people lacking the experience to cope with life's pressures and competition, tend to get depressed.

More than 60 per cent of 15,431 surveyed, suffered depression over the past two years and were aged their 20s or 30s.

The escalating problem lead to the creation of a national, 24-hour free suicide prevention hotline in August 2003.

Since then, more than 220,000 people have called the number.

However, executive director of the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Centre, Canadian Michael Phillips, said only one in 10 callers could get through on the first try.

"That is very dangerous because most of the callers are anxious and may commit suicide impulsively," he said.

Lung cancer and traffic accidents are the biggest causes of death in China.