Featured Review: Population-level interventions in government jurisdictions for dietary sodium reduction

National government initiatives have the potential to achieve population-wide reduction in salt intakeIn almost all countries worldwide, most people eat too much salt. This can cause high blood pressure, which can lead to health problems, such as heart disease and stroke. To reduce the amount of salt eaten, governments in many countries have developed national salt reduction initiatives. These initiatives may be individually oriented, such as providing education about salt, or structurally oriented, to improve or offset the deficiencies which prevent people from obtaining food with lower salt. As the number of population-based initiatives to reduce salt rise worldwide, it is important for policy-makers to identify which population-level intervention are impactful and cost-effective.A team of Cochrane authors based in Australia and Canada worked withCochrane Public Health to examine whether national salt reduction initiatives have been effective in reducing the amount of salt consumed in those populations. Fifteen national initiatives including more than 260,0000 people were included, with 10 initiatives providing sufficient date for quantitative analysis. These were mostly conducted in high-income countries. The quality of the data was rated to be very low given the nature of the interventions does not lend to using controlled study design.Population-level interventions in government jurisdictions for dietary sodium reduction have the potential to result in population-wide re...

Source: Cochrane News and Events - September 15, 2016 Category: Information Technology Authors: mumoquit at cochrane.org Source Type: news