Salt Solutions

Slashing Canadians' salt intake by half would trim health costs by $430-million a year, according to a new study.

By cutting excessive salt consumption, it's estimated about one million cases of hypertension would disappear.

This, in turn, would result in a 23 per cent drop in the use of medication for high blood pressure and a 6.5-per-cent drop in doctors' visits and laboratory tests, according to research published in today's edition of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

"I was shocked by the numbers," said Norm Campbell, a general internist at the University of Calgary, and lead author of the study.

"But our analysis is a marked underestimate because we looked only at the direct cost of hypertension and we didn't factor in the cost of events like heart attack and stroke."

An estimated five million Canadians have high blood pressure, which is one of the leading causes of heart attacks and strokes. Adults can safely eat about three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt daily but they are ingesting about two teaspoons, according to Statistics Canada data from earlier this year.

The U.S.-based Institute of Medicine, an independent organization, has established "tolerable upper intake levels" for sodium. A maximum of 2,300 mg is deemed acceptable for people aged 14 and older. The Statscan study found that in 2004, Canadians consumed, on average, 3,092 mg of sodium daily, not including salt they added to their food at the table.

The cost-savings calculations in the new study were based on Canadians reducing their salt intake to 1,840 mg daily.

"To have a real impact on hypertension, we have to reduce our salt intake by about half," Dr. Campbell said. "That may be naive, but I think we can do it."

Stephen Samis, director of health policy at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, said it could be done through a combination of consumer education, and working with industry to reduce the salt content of foods and with governments to monitor and regulate the food supply.

"We truly are what we eat," Mr. Samis said.

According to Statscan, an estimated 72,338 people died of cardiovascular disease in 2004, the most recent year for which mortality data are available.

Source: The Globe and Mail