By Dr
Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia
28
September 2014
Salt is
added to almost everything that we eat. Though mostly while cooking, it is also
not uncommon to find salt added to food at the dining table. Additionally,
globalization, consumerism and rapidly-changing lifestyle patterns have
increased the consumption of ready-to-eat snacks and processed food, which are
high in salt. As a result, our salt consumption is often way over the
WHO-recommended level of less than one teaspoon per adult per day. High salt
intake increases the risk of high blood pressure and is associated with heart
disease, stroke and other diseases.
Reducing
salt consumption is a cost-effective public health intervention. A landmark
United Nations High-Level Meeting on Non-communicable diseases has mandated
that high blood pressure prevention and control by population salt reduction is
one of the most urgent, cost-effective and immediate high priority
interventions to reduce heart diseases.
An
estimated 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year if global salt
consumption were reduced to the recommended level. According to a study, 15%
reduction in salt consumption over a ten-year period globally would be at a per
capita cost of less than US$ 0.4 and US$ 1 in developing and developed
countries respectively. Most people with hypertension currently live in low-
and middle-income countries that bear a disproportionate burden of
hypertension-related risk of deaths.
WHO
promotes salt reduction as a “best buy’ for governments to prevent and control
noncommunicable diseases such as heart diseases and stroke, and recommends a
daily salt intake of less than five grams per adult or just under a teaspoon.
The recommendation is even lower for children, depending on their energy needs.
To achieve this, a global voluntary target of 30% reduction in population
salt/sodium intake by 2025 has been set.
Focused
and culturally-appropriate interventions are needed in the South-East Asia
Region with its rich and diverse cuisine making extensive use of salt in some
traditional foods sauces, seasonings and pickles. Moreover, regulatory
interventions are needed to curtail the high amounts of hidden salt (sodium) in
industrially-produced processed food products such as breads, baked products,
packaged cereals and ketchup.
Reducing
salt consumption needs a multipronged and multisectoral approach in which
everyone has to contribute. Governments have a critical role to play and must
create awareness and develop policies that enable populations to consume
adequate quantities of safe and healthy diet, with low salt content.
The food
industry needs to be engaged to reduce salt content and provide healthy food
options by reformulating processed foods to reduced salt options. Simple
measures such as mandatory, easy-to-understand, consumer-friendly food
labelling, identifying low-salt products, can be effective in helping
individuals to make healthy dietary choices.
The
support of civil society is crucial for advocating and strengthening the impact
of policies by ensuring that communities understand the health risks of salt
consumption. Nongovernmental organizations can help create an enabling
environment for implementation of salt reduction strategies. The media can
amplify the benefits of cutting salt in the diet by building awareness.
A
well-informed and aware community – the housewife, parents and individuals –
could then play the critical role of opting for low-salt food and ensuring low
salt consumption. Simple household-level interventions such as adding less salt
to food while cooking, removing the salt dispenser from the dining table,
limiting the availability of high salt ready-to-eat food, increasing the intake
of fruits and vegetables and guiding children’s taste buds through a diet of
mostly unprocessed foods without adding salt would go a long way in improving
the health of people.
It is
imperative that salt reduction strategies and actions have realistic goals as
well as a reasonable timeframe to achieve them. The potential barriers to
implementing the strategies should be identified and steps to overcome them
should be prioritized.
Simultaneously,
a monitoring and measuring system needs to be set up to understand how much
salt people are consuming. Most countries of the Region lack current and
reliable data on salt intake. This is critical for designing appropriate
strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of any planned salt reduction efforts.
Reliable information
is also lacking with regard to the exact sources of salt. Evaluation of food
sources with high salt is a critical step for developing and monitoring the
impact of context-specific salt reduction strategies. Such information will be
important to facilitate the development of suitable salt reduction
interventions.
With
collaborative efforts by all sectors, the health benefits of reduced salt
intake will become apparent and greater over a period of time when people start
opting for healthier food, with less salt.
On World
Heart Day, WHO advocates to the public to reduce salt intake to add years to
their lives and urges governments and civil societies to adopt salt reduction
programmes for enormous public health gains.
For
more information please contact:
World
Health Organization
Country
Office for Thailand
4th
Fl.,Permanent Secretary Bld 3
Ministry
of Public Health, Nonthaburi
Tel:
+6625918198, Fax: +6625918199
Email:
setharegistry@who.int
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