Dive Brief:
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A recent global study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that over a course of 10 years, a 10% reduction in salt consumption would save almost 6 million life-years currently lost to cardiovascular disease, according to News Wise.
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The study modeled the costs and effects of government policies aimed at cutting salt consumption by 10% in 183 countries. Researchers estimated that each life-year saved would also result in $204 in savings.
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“We found that a government-supported national plan to reduce salt would be cost-effective in nearly every country in the world,” study author Michael Webb, Ph.D., said. “This was true even if we assumed the estimated costs were much greater or the benefits less strong.”
Dive Insight:
In light of consumer and scientist concern over high sodium levels as a precursor to heart disease, many food manufacturers have diversified their product portfolios to include “healthy” or “lighter” offerings.
For example, Campbell’s has a chicken noodle soup variety labeled as containing “25% less sodium than our regular product.”
A serving of that “regular product” — a half-cup of soup, according to the label — contains 890 mg, or 37% recommended dietary allowance (RDA), of sodium. The “reduced sodium” version, at the same serving size, delivers “28% RDA”, at 660 mg. In both instances, the “serving size” is measured after the condensed soup has been diluted with a cup of water per container — a step some consumers may not be aware of.
Many product diversifications like these are not much healthier than the originals. But manufacturers face a difficult challenge: while the majority of consumers seek healthier product formulas, few are willing to give up the salty tastes they’ve grown to love. This demand for ultra-salty food and snacks discourages many manufactures from reducing salt and other problem ingredients in their products.
Because of this, as the BMJ study suggests, the government may need to get involved to kick the nation’s sodium addiction.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information, an agency of the National Institutes of Health, reported in 2015 that a total of 73 countries already have a national salt reduction strategy.That's more than double the number of countries that reported having one in a 2010 study.
Policy approaches include encouraging companies to reformulate foods (61 countries), encouraging front-of-package labeling (31), legislatively mandating salt reduction in foods (33), taxation on high-salt foods (33), consumer education 71) and interventions in public institutions (54).
While those efforts have reported some successes — 12 countries have reported reduction in salt intake across their populations, 19 have reported reduced salt content in food, and 6 showed improvements in public knowledge — there's clearly a lot needing to be done to hit the overall 10% consumption sought in the BMJ-reported study.