Salt Intake and Cardiovascular Disease

Salt is made up of 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride. Sodium helps to maintain your blood's water content, serves to balance the acids and bases in your blood, and is necessary for the movement of electrical charges in the nerves that move our muscles.

Salt intake has been correlated directly with blood pressure and the relationship between chronic high salt intake, high Blood Pressure, and cardiovascular disease is very strong. The totality of the evidence for salt is more robust than for any other dietary variables considered to be important in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. recommended salt intake is <5 br="br" day.="day." g="g">

The increased cardiac work induced by the combination of the higher salt intake and the further augmentation in afterload was associated with increased systolic indices of ventricular contractility accompanied by nonsuppressed tissue levels of Ang II and AT1 receptor protein. Evidence of downregulation of AT1 receptor mRNA in the heart of salt-loaded SHR may reflect a tissue response to the activated circulatory and nonsuppressed cardiac Ang II, providing further supporting evidence of inappropriately high Ang II activity in different models of salt-sensitive hypertension [Liang and Leenen, 2007; Zhu et al. 2004; Sumida et al. 1998; Kreutz et al. 1995].

What to do
Each country should adopt a coherent and workable strategy to reduce salt intake. In most developed countries, ~80% of salt is hidden in foods, i.e. added by the food industry. It is therefore vital to persuade the food industry to make a gradual and sustained reduction in the amount of salt they add to foods. Several countries, e.g. Finland and the UK, have successfully carried out salt reduction programmes and salt intake has already fallen. Many other countries, e.g. Australia, Canada, and the USA, are also stepping up their activities to reduce salt intake. In many developing countries, where most of the salt consumed comes from salt either added during cooking or from sauces, public health campaigns are needed to encourage consumers to use less salt. A modest reduction in population salt intake worldwide would result in a major improvement in public health.

• Buying low-sodium foods and Avoiding high-sodium foods
• Going on a low-sodium diet