Published in News
A blog post written by Sheree Folkes, Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr).
This is World Salt Awareness Week and an opportune time to reflect upon our use of this seemingly innocuous granular substance that we sprinkle over our food. Salt – we add it before, during and after cooking to enhance flavour and let’s face it, we love it, but apparently it does not love us back.
When there is too much salt in the blood, the kidneys draw in more water to dilute the blood increasing its volume. This means the heart has to pump harder, increasing blood pressure. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and it is estimated that 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year if global salt consumption were reduced to the recommended level.
The WHO recommend that adults consume less than 5g (just under a teaspoon) of salt a day. With most of us consuming two or three times more than the recommendation, reducing salt intake has been identified as one of the most cost-effective measures countries can take to improve population health outcomes. However, achieving this reduction can be challenging given our long-term, one-sided love affair with salt.
Our relationship with salt began more than 5,000 years ago when ancient civilisations discovered its preservative properties. As it increased in popularity it gradually became the most taxed and traded commodity in the world. At one time it was considered more valuable than gold and the fact that we use phrases such as ‘salt of the earth’, and ‘not worth his salt’ and similar phrases in other languages, indicate how important and culturally significant salt has been in human history.
More recently in low- and middle-income countries, rapid urbanisation and changing lifestyles has meant that dietary patterns are being transformed. More and more high salt, processed foods are becoming available and affordable. The consequences have been catastrophic for our health, increasing the prevalence of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and other NCDs worldwide.
GACD’s mission is to reduce the burden of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries, and in populations facing conditions of vulnerability in high-income countries, by building evidence to inform national and international NCD polices.
As part of this, the GACD has funded 43 major studies and scale up projects on hypertension prevention and control in low- and middle-income countries and vulnerable communities within high-income countries, several of which explore how to successfully implement salt reduction strategies. To date these projects have produced over 150 peer-reviewed publications. Furthermore, seven joint publications – driven by collaboration between project teams across the GACD Research Network – have been developed, coalescing diverse contexts and perspectives.
Read more about ongoing GACD projects.