Nearly every country (181 of 187) in the world consumes in excess of the WHO recommended maximum salt intake of 5g per day. The high profile provided by public health efforts has resulted in a vast number of publications on dietary salt. The rapidly growing volume of research makes it challenging to stay up-to-date as to what is the best strategy for improving health.

The objective of this project is to identify, summarize and appraise studies reporting on:

1.  the relationship between dietary salt and health outcomes, and
2. the implementation of salt reduction strategies,

with a view to assist scientists, clinicians and policy makers to stay informed about the effects of salt on health and the best strategies to lower salt intake.

• Relevant articles are identified through an established weekly Medline literature search. The automated search strategy was adapted from an approach used to conduct Cochrane systematic reviews for the development of WHO dietary salt recommendations.
• Regularly updated systematic reviews on the relationship between dietary salt and health outcomes, and the implementation of strategies to achieve salt reduction in populations, are being published in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

• To date, six systematic reviews on the relationship between salt and health outcomes and seven on the implementation of salt reduction initiatives have been published.