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Reducing daily salt in take could prevent millions of cases of stroke and heart disease and save millions of lives in China, according to new research.
The Chinese government’s action plan ‘Healthy China 2030’ includes nutritional recommendations the reduce the intake of salt, sugar and oil.
Salt intake in China is extremely high compared to other areas of the world, with an average daily intake of 11g a day. The action plan aims to reduce this intake by 6g a day by 2030.
To discover the health gains that would be achieved by reducing salt intake across the nation, the researchers compiled the latest and most reliable figures for population size, salt intake, blood pressure and disease rates by region and age and then estimated the impact on cardiovascular health for three different approaches.
Reducing salt consumption by 6g a day could save 8 million lives in China alone
To help inform an achievable reduction programme, the researchers considered the health impact of reducing salt intake by 1g a day, rather than the Chinese government’s target of 6g per day.
Reducing salt intake by 1g a day was found to lower average systolic blood pressure by about 1.2 mmHg. And if this reduction were achieved in a year and sustained, some 9 million cases of heart disease and stroke could be prevented by 2030 – 4 million of them fatal.
The researchers then considered the effects of reducing salt intake by 3.2 g/day, in line with the WHO’s interim target of a 30% reduction by 2025. Were this to be maintained over five years, a cumulative total of about 14 million cases of heart disease and strokes could be prevented by 2030 – 6 million of them fatal.
And if kept up until 2040, the cumulative total could reach around 27 million cases, 12 million of them fatal.
Finally, achieving the Chinese government’s target to reduce salt consumption to less than 5g a day would see average systolic blood pressure reduce by just over 7 mmHg. This would lead to a reduction of 17 million cases of heart disease and strokes by 2030 – 8 million of them fatal.
Salt reduction may bring other health benefits
The findings, published in the open access journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health, apply to men and women of all ages in China.
The researchers add that there may be additional benefits such as secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease and reductions in cases of chronic kidney disease and stomach cancer, rates of which are already high or rising in China. However, further research will need to be done to confirm this.
While the researchers say that a 1g reduction in daily salt intake is “easily achievable” in the short-term, the estimates rely on salt reductions to not only be achieved, but also sustained over time.
“This may be a great challenge given the fast-changing dietary patterns seen in China given its rapid urbanisation,” they write.
“Modelling studies like this one provide an indicator of how specific dietary changes have the potential to alter the course of diet related disease,” comments Shane McAuliffe, Science and Digital Communications Lead at the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health, which co-owns the journal.
“Given the established dose-response relationship between salt intake, systolic blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, reducing the intake of one of the highest global consumers would have a significant impact on population health -something that has already been achieved in other countries worldwide,” he adds.