Do your heart a favour

27th February 2016

Do your heart a favour – cut out the salt!
(National Salt Awareness Week 29th Feb – 6th March)

This week sees the annual National Salt Awareness Week swing into action and this year the focus is on making everyone aware of hidden salt.

Cutting your salt intake is so important because it’s one simple way to reduce your risk of strokes and heart disease, because it helps lower your blood pressure.

Reducing average salt intake by just 1g a day could prevent at least 2,600 deaths from stroke each year nationally, plus the additional thousands of events that do not result in death.

In Stockport 43,000 adults have been diagnosed with high blood pressure but it’s estimated a further 15,000 have it but don’t yet know. The borough has around 550 heart attacks and 220 strokes a year and high blood pressure is a major contributing factor for both of these.

You may think a sprinkle of salt on your food might not do much damage, but eating food high in salt can result in a whole host of health problems.

Not only does it contribute to heart disease, but a high salt diet can also cause problems like osteoporosis, kidney disease, and even stomach cancer.

Did you know that an adult should eat no more than 6g of salt a day – that’s about one full teaspoon?

You don’t have to be consciously adding salt to your food to end up having too much though because about three quarters of the salt you eat is in every day foods.

We’re aware there’s plenty in salty things like bacon, ham and smoked meats but did you realise that even sweet tasting things like ketchup contain salt?

Because so many of us have high blood pressure cutting down on your salt intake is a really good way to improve your health.

Check out the nutrition labels on any foods you’re buying. For certain things like bread, cereals, ready meals, soups and sauces the amount of salt in them will vary massively.

Aim to keep the salt level under 0.3g per 100g – colour coded green on some packaging – or at worst keep it under 1.5g per 100g which is colour coded amber.

Sometimes it’s listed as sodium and, if it is, you need to multiply it by two and a half to get the salt level. If it contains 0.4g of sodium then there’s 1g of salt in it per 100g.

There are plenty of normal foods out there with low levels of salt – so Stop, Look and Choose the lower salt option for your health!