The beginning of February marked World Salt Awareness Week, which is an annual event put on by the World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) group. WASH has been around 2005 when they established themselves with a goal of trying to improve the health of people around the world by working to reduce the increasing salt intake that are found in our modern diets.

The 2010 theme for World Salt Awareness Week was “Salt and Your Health”, which aimed to increase the knowledge about how salt effects overall health. Many people now know that they need to watch their salt intake if they suffer from high blood pressure or have heart conditions, but recent studies have also demonstrated that high salt diets can lead to the development of certain types stomach cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and kidney stones as well as more serious kidney diseases.

Many people are eating close to 10X the recommended daily amount of sodium in their diets.  Most of this salt is not the result of the natural sodium found in many foods, or the result of adding salt when cooking, but is found in the processed foods that we buy or have when eating out. As with counting calories or reading for nutritional information it is always best to pay close attention to the labels on food to get an understanding of how much sodium is contained. In order to preserve freshness and increase taste many foods that you would think would have very little salt are in fact loaded with it and can account for half your total sodium allowance in just one snack.

The “Salt and Your Health” week focused on the danger high salt poses to blood pressure levels. Salt raises blood pressure and eating too much is responsible for strokes, heart attacks and heart failure. Many strokes can be prevented be early attention being paid to high blood pressure and a combination of lifestyle changes and prescription medication when deemed necessary by your doctor. Salt intake is the major factor that controls the amount of calcium in the body. As calcium is vital for bone strength, high salt intake may lead to weakening of the bones and an increased risk of osteoporosis. Salt, particularly in high concentration, damages the delicate lining of the stomach. This makes it more vulnerable to infections by Helicobacter Pylori, a type of bacteria that causes both stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. High blood pressure has been shown to increase the amount of protein in the urine which is a major risk factor for the decline of kidney function and there is increasing evidence that a high salt intake may increase how quickly kidney disease progresses in older patients with a family history of the disease.

It is hoped that letting people know the risks associated with a high salt diet will lead to people not only more closely monitoring their salt consumption, but also will cause people to demand that food companies work to lower the amount of salt they add into their products.

Let’s see what kind of smart sodium health choices we can make this month to start ourselves on a path to better diets and better living. If you have any tips on reducing sodium let us know in the comments or e-mail us at Info@CanadaDrugs.com