Salt intake and blood pressure in Iranian children and adolescents: a population-based study

Published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders on the 2nd of February 2021, Emamian et al conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate the daily salt intake levels of schoolchildren aged 9-15 years, and its association with high blood pressure in an area with a high prevalence of hypertension (Shahroud, northeast Iran). A subsample of 5,620 schoolchildren provided […]

Limited potential impact of Australia’s reformulation targets on sodium purchases

Research by Coyle et al (2020) from the George Institute for Global Health has sparked media attention as it found very limited potential impact on reducing sodium intake of the Australian population from the voluntary sodium reformulation programme, the Healthy Food Partnership, with just 50mg daily reduction per person if there was 100% compliance with […]

Change in mean salt intake: 24-h urine versus overnight and spot urine samples

Published in the Nutrition Journal on 6th December 2020, Santos et al conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare the estimates of change in mean population salt intake based on 24-h urine and overnight/spot urine samples. From 14 studies, the pooled mean change in salt intake was − 0.43 g/day (95% CI − 1.16 […]

Effectiveness of the Victorian Salt Reduction Partnership’s media advocacy activities

Published in the Nutrition Journal on 16 September 2020, Rosewarne et al evaluated the Victorian Salt Reduction Partnership’s media advocacy activities by determining the extent to which activities contributed to the overall strategy aims and the effectiveness of the activities in gaining media and industry engagement. Guided by Stead et al’s framework for evaluating media […]

High sodium and low potassium intakes in Kazakhstan using 24-h urinary sodium excretion

Published in the European Journal of Nutrition, Trieu et al analysed the data from two cross sectional surveys that collected 24-h urine samples from participants aged 25-64 years to estimate mean sodium and potassium intake and describe dietary knowledge and behaviour among adults in two different regions of Kazakhstan. The study found the weighted mean […]

Salt reduction initiatives in Africa: A systematic review

Published in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension, Tekle et al conducted a systematic review to document salt consumption patterns, the implementation status and potential impact of salt reduction initiatives in Africa. From 38 studies included, the review found that the mean estimated salt intake in African adults ranged from 6.8 g/day to 11.3 g/day. Salt […]

Major food companies contribute more than 50% of household dietary sodium purchases in Australia

Published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Coyle et al conducted a cross-sectional study to identify the relative contribution that food companies and their products made to Australian household sodium purchases in 2018, and to examine differences in sodium purchases by household income level. One year of grocery purchase data from […]

WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO EURO) released new country support package to aid salt reduction

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In late July the WHO EURO office launched a new package to support countries in the European region to reduce salt consumption. The support package provides a step-by-step guide on developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating salt reduction programs. It is hoped that this support package will encourage countries to either reinforce of further pursue salt […]

Scaling-up and evaluating salt reduction policies and programs in Latin American countries

In May 2020, the final technical reports of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) project, “Scaling-up and evaluating policies and programs in salt reduction in LA countries,” were published. The reports and most outputs can be found in the IDRC Digital Library. Some key report include: Regional policy Brief, “The Challenge of Reducing Dietary Salt […]