Memo to food industry: Cut the salt

If voluntary reduction targets don’t work, a private member’s bill is waiting in the wings

It wasn’t all that long ago that Canadians were engaged in a passionate love affair with tobacco. But that changed in recent decades, given evidence that the love affair was killing us.

Now we have a new love affair — or perhaps an old one, but one that has only recently received substantial publicity. And the object of our attention in this affair is more ubiquitous than tobacco ever was. Indeed, it’s as close as much of the food we eat, or the salt shaker we reach for at each meal.

It’s sodium, an excess of which contributes to cardiovascular disease — all diseases of the heart and blood vessels, including heart attacks and strokes. And according to two studies presented at the American Heart Association’s 2013 Scientific Sessions, excessive sodium consumption represents a significant health threat throughout the world.

In the first study, researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health analyzed 247 studies of adult sodium intake conducted between 1990 and 2010 as part of the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases study. And they found that the love affair with sodium is a worldwide one.

In fact, average sodium consumption in 181 of 187 countries, representing 99 per cent of the world’s population, exceeded the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 2,000 mg of sodium per day. And average intake in 119 countries, including Canada, exceeded the recommended amount by more than 1,000 mg. ( Canadians average about 3,400 mg of sodium per day, even though Health Canada recommends only 1,500 mg a day and an upper daily limit of 2,300 mg.)

Given the relationship between salt and heart disease, one would think our worldwide love affair would be contributing to serious health problems. And according to the second study, one would be right.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital also analyzed data from the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases study to determine sodium intake, and then performed a meta- analysis of 107 randomized trials to assess the effect of sodium on blood pressure and consequent cardiovascular disease.

Based on these analyses, the researchers estimated that excess sodium consumption contributed to 2.3 million deaths from heart attacks, strokes and other heart- related diseases in 2010, which represents 15 per cent of deaths from these causes. Nearly one million deaths, or about 40 per cent of the total, were premature, as they occurred in people 69 years of age and younger.

Clearly, this is a love affair we can do without. And according to a survey of 2,603 Canadian adults conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph and published in the May issue of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, it’s a love affair Canadians would like to do without.

Although the survey found Canadians displayed limited knowledge of sodium — only 16 per cent knew the recommended intake for sodium and many thought their sodium intake was low because they don’t add salt to their food — it also discovered that most were concerned about sodium consumption and favoured a variety of measures to reduce it.

Specifically, 80 per cent of respondents said they would like the food industry to lower the amount of sodium in food. Similarly, more than 80 per cent supported setting maximum amounts of sodium in foods sold in restaurants, grocery stores, schools and hospitals. In contrast, few respondents supported taxing high sodium foods or subsidizing low sodium ones.

The survey was conducted to assess Canadians’s support for the recommendations of the federal Sodium Working Group report, which Private Member’s Bill C- 406 seeks to enshrine in law. Among other things, the group recommended that Health Canada work with industry to establish voluntary reduction targets and only to legislate on the matter in the absence of achieving those targets.

Whether Bill C- 406 gets anywhere, the survey makes it clear that Canadians, while not favouring government action like taxation and subsidization, do strongly support industry voluntarily reducing sodium content. So reducing sodium in foods not only makes good moral sense; it also makes good business sense. And it’s something the food industry should therefore make a priority.