Time to Mandate Salt Reduction Targets and Save Lives, Health Professionals and Charities Tell Government
View the open letter here: Open letter to the Prime Minister [PDF 355KB]
A group of 236 nutritionists, dietitians, researchers, pharmacists, nurses and GPs including the Royal Society for Public Health, the Faculty of Public Health, Blood Pressure UK, Early Start Nutrition, Heart UK and London Early Years Foundation - plus members of the public - have joined together to call on the UK Government to prioritise a simple, cost-effective and hugely impactful health policy for the food industry by introducing comprehensive and mandatory salt targets and help save thousands of preventable deaths.
In a letter (dated 27th April) to The Prime Minister, the group is urging ministers to ensure that all UK food companies commit to salt reduction and help to prevent one of the major causes of disability and death, i.e. strokes and heart disease, by lowering blood pressure through salt reduction.
Despite the Food Standards Agency successfully setting voluntary salt reduction targets in 2004 across more than 80 categories of processed food which led to population salt intake falling by 15% in 2011 (with a calculated cost saving to the NHS of £1.5bn per year), progress has since stalled, leading to thousands of premature deaths[1]. The food industry has proven they cannot comply with voluntary measures. Now is the time for mandatory, comprehensive salt reduction targets to ensure success and create a level playing field, says Action on Salt (one of the contributors to the letter).
Earlier this year, evidence from South Africa (where unlike the UK they have mandatory salt targets) showed that in just five years, most products now comply with the targets and this achieved a large fall in population salt intake, with the biggest falls occurring in the most deprived groups. In light of the Government’s ‘levelling up’ ambitions and the imminent release of a White Paper detailing measures to address health disparities, mandatory salt targets would help ensure the government meet those ambitions.
Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Queen Mary University of London, and Chairman of Action on Salt says:
“Reducing salt is the most cost-effective measure for lowering blood pressure and reducing the number of people suffering and dying from strokes, heart disease and life changing disabilities. Food companies have the very simple option to reformulate with less salt and help prevent the many thousands of people who currently die unnecessarily. However, companies are making very little effort to comply with the current voluntary targets. As a result, the amount of salt the nation eats is not falling. Therefore, the Government must enforce its comprehensive salt reduction targets without delay.”
ENDS
National PR – David Clarke: david@rock-pr.com M: 07773 225516
Website www.actiononsalt.org.uk
Notes to editors:
About Action on Salt
Action on Salt is a group concerned with salt and its effects on health, supported by 22 expert scientific members. Action on Salt is successfully working to reach a consensus with the food industry and Government over the harmful effects of a high salt diet and bring about a reduction in the amount of salt in processed foods as well as salt added to cooking, and at the table.
[1] MacGregor G A, He F J, Pombo-Rodrigues S. Food and the responsibility deal: how the salt reduction strategy was derailed BMJ 2015; 350 :h1936 doi:10.1136/bmj.h1936
