The Shocking Facts About Salt
- Someone in Britain is killed every 15 minutes and the culprit is salt. More than four Britains are dying every hour because they have too much salt in their diet.
- There is now overwhelming evidence to show that a high salt diet leads to high blood pressure.
- Blood pressure is one of the main causes of premature death. This is because blood pressure is the major cause of stroke and heart failure and an important cause of coronary heart disease (CHD).
- As well as causing strokes by raising blood pressure, a high salt intake appears to give rise to stroke directly.
- Stroke, heart failure and CHD account for just under half of all deaths in the UK and are the UK 's biggest killers. Indeed, every two minutes someone has a heart attack.
- It is not just men who are at risk, cardiovascular disease affects as
many women as men, albeit at an older age. In 2000, 120,000 women died from heart and circulatory disease in the UK - 50,000 more than died from cancer.
- Just over 1/3 of the entire adult population in the UK has high blood pressure (systolic equal or less than 140, diastolic equal or less than 90).
- In the UK , of the population between the ages of 50-59 about 40% have high BP, while at 60-74 years about 60% have high blood pressure.
- The famous Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trial showed that a salt restriction coupled with a sensible low fat diet, with plenty of fruit and vegetables, could reduce blood pressure by 11.5/5.7 mmHg in hypertensives and 7.1/3.7 in normotensives.
- It has been calculated that a 3g reduction in salt intake in the adult population would lead to a 22% reduction in stroke and a 16% reduction in CHD. This would save 35,000 stroke and CHD deaths a year in the UK .
- A high salt intake causes other adverse effects on health, these include: worsening of renal disease, triggering an asthma attack, gastric cancer, osteoporosis, exacerbation of fluid retention, kidney stones.
- Although less tolerant of salt, children are eating as much salt as adults because of their fast food diet.
- It is believed that children who follow a high salt diet are more likely to develop rising blood pressure with age.
- Reducing children's salt intake by half results in immediate falls in blood pressure, which in turn could lead to major reductions in the risk of developing stroke, heart attacks and heart failure later in life.
- About 80% of our salt intake now comes from processed foods.
- So-called 'healthy' processed food is not necessarily low in salt.
- Staple foods such as bread and breakfast cereal can contain significant amounts of salt. Some well known brands of breakfast cereal contain the same concentration of salt as Atlantic sea water i.e. 1g of sodium per 100g.
- The last major work done on estimating the average national salt intake was in 1990. It was found to be 9g. It is now believed to be more like 12g a day.
- The actual adult requirement for salt is 4g a day. The Chief Medical officer and the COMA panel have suggested that salt intake should not exceed 6g a day.
- Stomach cancer is the 5 th most common cancer for men and the 6 th most common cancer for women in the UK . Each year, there are over 6,500 new cases of stomach cancer in men and over 3,900 cases in women. Eating lots of salted, cured and smoked foods may increase the risk of stomach cancer.
- One in four men and one in five women can expect to have a stroke if they live to 85.
- National consumption of salt in a year is estimated to be around 200,000 tonnes.