Pass (up) the Salt

Monday (Jan 28) was the beginning of the World Salt Awareness Week.

To draw attention to this event, three National Centres of Excellence Networks got together to bestow the “Salt Lick Award” to A&W for the saltiest kids burger.

This initiative, led by the Canadian Stroke Network was both by the Advanced Food and Materials Network as well as the Canadian Obesity Network and received considerable attentions from national media.

As some of you may know, I have a special interest in this topic. In fact, much of my early research was on trying to understand why salt affects blood pressure in some people but not others.

Obesity is certainly one factor that can make you more “sensitive” to salt intake. This was elegantly demonstrated by Alberto Rocchini, who not only demonstrated this relationship in adolescents but also showed that weight loss can make them less sensitive to salt.

Clearly, there is good reason to avoid excess salt, especially if you have high blood pressure and carry around some extra weight.

Hopefully, the attention that salt receives this week will put some pressure on food producers and restaurants to do what they can to reduce salt in foods.

In the meantime be sure to pass (up) the salt.

AMS