Don't pass the salt: experts call for salt cutbacks

Thursday 11th August 2011 , by Vincent Murphy


Salt is proverbally good, yet high levels of salt consumption throughout the world have turned our favourite seasoning into a veritable health risk. Further, it is a problem which seems to be spreading - experts writing at the BMJ today cite a growth in salt use which occurs in parallel to the expansion of a global food economony. It's not just processed foods which are being introduced to new markets and seeing rapid growth outside their traditional western economies, but also the addition of salt to these foods. Because salt tends to make foods taste better those seeking to promote processed foods find that added salt helps them to market their products against established un-processed and un-salted foods.

Calling upon health policy makers and governments around the world ahead of the United Nations High Level Meeting on non-communicable diseases, Professor Francesco Cappuccio and colleagues point to data which suggest potential savings both in the prevention of death and in public healthcare cost reduction. In particular, the reduction of salt consumption is able to substantially reduce levels of both stroke and heart disease. If salt intake were cut by 3 grammes a day it would prevent up to eight thousand stroke deaths and up to twelve thousand coronary heart disease deaths per year in the UK. Likewise, data suggest that one-hundred-and-twenty thousand coronary heart disease cases, sixty-six thousand stroke cases and up to almost one-hundred thousand heart attacks a year in the USA - along with a substantial saving of $24 billion a year in healthcare costs.

The question, they say, is not whether to reduce salt intake but how to do so

Current WHO targets specify a 5 gramme level per person per day level to be achieved within thirteen years. At present there is a long way to go in many countries before this target is met. How then can governments work to achieve a reduction in salt intake? The current call points to four essential parts of a coordinated response:

Communication: by setting up new public awareness campaigns, and evaluating current ones.
Reformulation: working with the food industry to reformulate products to contain less added salt, and by coordinating this through voluntary standards or guidelines.
Monitoring: through constant assessment of salt intake, changes to product formulations, and measuring the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns.
Regulation: engaging in a more enforced way, including through regulation, to ensure that manufacturers who seek to use lower-salt formulations do not lose business to higher-salt competitors. Only when all manufacturers reduce salt in a similar way will the current taste-differentials be preserved within a lower-salt market.

"The huge responsibility of food manufacturers in contributing to the epidemic of cardiovascular disease must be acknowledged, and prevention implemented through food reformulation and effective voluntary, market intervention or mandatory action throughout the industry"

You can read the full story at the BMJ