MDA president Winnie Chee told FMT instead, that numerous studies have drawn a clear link between high salt intake and its effect on blood pressure and the greater incidence of hypertension (high blood pressure), among other things.
The high intake of salt has been linked to lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity, and in Malaysia, the number of sufferers of such diseases runs into the millions.
Chee was responding to an article in the Daily Mail recently which had questioned the “low-salt idea”.
According to Dr James DiNicolantonio – a cardiovascular research scientist from Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute – there’s no scientific evidence to support the “low-salt idea”.
In his article in the Daily Mail, he says the “dangerous” myth that salt raises blood pressure was started over a century ago by French scientists who based their findings on studies of just six patients, and that the link between high blood pressure and salt was established on the “most spurious of pretexts”.
He also noted that the average Korean ate over 4,000mg of salt per day, with many of their staples being full of salt, yet the country had one of the world’s lowest rates for hypertension.
But Chee, who is an associate dean at the International Medical University’s School of Health, described the article as “controversial and not supported by strong science” at this point in time.
She said it was crucial that Malaysians – who on average consume three times the amount of salt they are supposed to – adopt a low salt diet.
Last June, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam revealed that 6.1 million Malaysians suffered from hypertension and 9.6 million had a high cholesterol level. He said 3.3 million Malaysians were obese.
This led to consumer groups in Malaysia calling for the government to impose taxes on salt or foods with high salt content to deter people from consuming excess amounts of salt.
Salt, along with sugar and cooking oil, are essential items that are not subjected to the GST.
Chee said Malaysians consume an average of 5,000mg to 6,000mg of salt per day, way more than the recommended amount of 2,300mg – equivalent to one tea spoon – a day.
She said studies conducted around the world had demonstrated that a high salt diet increases blood pressure, which increases the risk of developing cardiac, stroke, and kidney complications.
One such study in 1994 compared a standard American diet high in red meat and sugars and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which put a greater emphasis on fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy foods, less red meat and less saturated fats.
She said a subsequent study – in which the amount of salt was lowered in both the American and DASH diets – reinforced the findings that lesser salt intake had a more positive impact on blood pressure.
Chee added that the DASH diet studies had contributed much of the scientific basis for guidelines that recommends reducing daily sodium to less than a teaspoon.
“Koreans may eat high sodium but their other risk factors are low to cause diseases. For instance, their diet is mostly low in fat, they take nutrient rich food and are more active.
“So, we cannot directly associate their high salt intake with their lower heart disease risk as there are other factors including lifestyle and perhaps genetics which also play a role,” she said.
Chee said as salt was naturally present in food, only a “little bit” – a quarter of a tea spoon for a single person to be exact – needed to be added into food.
For Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (Fomca), there’s no disputing that Malaysians need to cut down on their salt consumption.
The issue, according to Fomca CEO Paul Selvaraj, lies in helping people understand just how much salt is contained in food.
“How does the layman know just how much salt is in a product? Yes, we have labels on food items, but what does this mean to the layman? We can’t expect people to immediately know whether the amount of salt in the food is too much,” he said.
Selvaraj said this was why Fomca wanted the government to adopt a “traffic light system” for labelling of food items to help consumers understand just how healthy or unhealthy their food is.
With the traffic light system, foods have a green, amber or red label. A green label would indicate that the food item is a healthy food item, being rich in nutrients, low in sugar, salt and saturated fat, as well as being low in energy and high in fibre.
Food items with a amber label meanwhile, should be consumed in moderation as although they may contain nutrients, they may also contain sugar, salt and saturated fat.
As for food items with a red label, they are considered non-essential foods with high sugar, salt and saturated fat content, and shouldn’t be consumed regularly.
“We want the government to adopt the traffic light system and make it compulsory for all food item producers to follow the system.
“This will make it easy for people, especially parents to understand what is actually contained in their children’s food,” he said, citing the example of some breakfast cereals which were marketed as healthy food items, but actually had a high sugar content which was reflected on the labels.