A new study released for World Salt Awareness Week reveals that Australians a falling behind when it comes to reducing salt consumption.
Given that eating less salt is an important part of reducing blood pressure and preventing early deaths from diseases linked to high blood pressure, study author, Dr Kathy Trieu from The George Institute for Global Health says these findings are disappointing.
“While the Government have set some voluntary food reformulation targets, they would be more ambitious and made mandatory to make a real difference. The food industry also has a role to play in making products that have less salt in them,” says Dr Trieu.
“With more than six million Australian adults having high blood pressure, reducing salt consumption would save thousands of lives each year, as well as millions in healthcare costs,” she adds.
According to Dr Trieu, “Australians are eating almost double the recommended maximum of 5g – or a teaspoon – of salt per day”.
“While we’ve had food reformulation targets, front of pack labelling and national nutrition guidelines for schools in place for some time, these measures will remain voluntary and are clearly not having an impact on actual salt intakes,” she says.
While a number of countries have taken “regulatory approaches to salt reduction”, the authors of the study advise that “countries need to accelerate efforts to reduce salt intakes and regularly monitor and evaluate progress to achieve the global 30% salt reduction target by 2025” as set out by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
They suggest that a stronger focus on packaged or processed foods is warranted to achieve this, as these foods make up three quarters of the daily salt intake in high-income countries like Australia.
“We need three key changes – governments need to set more comprehensive and mandatory targets; industry needs to commit to adhering to product reformulation; consumers need to be empowered to switch from processed to fresh foods.
“And the report card for Australia reads: ‘must try harder’,” says Dr Trieu.
For more information and to read the study, visit: academic.oup.com/advances/advance-article/doi/10.1093/advances/nmab008/6159028?login=true
