The number of new malignant tumor cases exceeded 40,000 in Beijing in 2013, meaning an average of 110 people were diagnosed with cancer every day in the Chinese capital, a whitepaper from the Beijing municipal government said Thursday.

The 2013 Whitepaper on Health said that cancer has become the top killer of Beijing residents for the seventh consecutive year, followed by heart disease and the cerebrovascular disease. All three accounted for 74 percent of the total deaths in Beijing last year.

In 2013, the number of new malignant tumor cases hit 40,307, up 3.22 percent from the previous year.

"In the past ten years, new cases of cancer increased by 2.2 percent a year on average," said Wang Ning, a researcher from Beijing Cancer Hospital. Ten years ago, an average of 63 people were diagnosed daily with cancer.

Experts in disease prevention and control believe that chronic diseases are closely connected to unhealthy lifestyles. According to the whitepaper, apart from sleeping, Beijing residents spend almost six hours sitting, resting or lying down, including watching TV, using computers, reading, eating, playing games.

This topic has become a hot subject among Beijing Internet users on Sina Weibo, a popular Twitter-like microblogging service in China. Many people are worried that serious diseases will see a major increase in the oncoming decades due to severe air, water and other kinds of pollution.

"The government should act to prevent this trend and give us a better life," said one Internet user named "Little Woodpecker" on Sina Weibo.