The Science of Salt: A regularly updated systematic review of the implementation of salt reduction interventions (September 2016–February 2017)

Abstract

This periodic review aims to identify, summarize, and appraise studies relating to the implementation of salt reduction strategies that were published between September 2016 and February 2017. A total of 41 studies were included as relevant to the design, assessment, and implementation of salt reduction strategies, and a detailed appraisal was conducted on the seven studies that evaluated the impact of salt reduction strategies. Of these, three were national studies or included large populations and four were conducted in communities with small participant sample sizes. Each study used a different strategy for reducing salt intake varying from category-specific sodium targets for packaged food to use of a low-sodium salt substitute to behavior change interventions. Four studies found statistically significant decreases in dietary salt intake and one study showed statistically significant decreases in mean sodium density of packaged food products. Four of the seven studies used either spot or 24-hour urine samples to measure dietary salt intake and five were conducted in East or Southeast Asia-two of which were in low-and middle-income countries. Study quality varied among the seven studies and all except one had one or more risks related to bias.

The Science of Salt: A global review on changes in sodium levels in foods

“…Most studies (n = 22) came from just seven high‐income countries with two from two middle‐income countries. The low number of studies from low‐ and middle‐income countries is in line with our previous reviews and means that the applicability of findings generated from the current review may be limited in these settings. Further, compared to the 2015 review of salt reduction initiatives around the world which reported that 38 countries (28 high‐income and 10 middle‐income countries) have voluntary or mandatory sodium targets for foods, the current review shows that only eight of these countries (seven high‐income and one middle‐income countries) have available data on change to measure the food industry's progress to reduce the sodium content of products.…”

“…Most studies (n = 22) came from just seven high-income countries with two from two middle-income countries. The low number of studies from lowand middle-income countries is in line with our previous reviews [23][24][25][26][27] and means that the applicability of findings generated from the current review may be limited in these settings. Further, compared to the 2015 review of salt reduction initiatives around the world which interventions.…”

“…As part of this initiative, regularly updated systematic reviews on the relationship between salt and health outcomes, and the implementation of salt reduction interventions are being published in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension. 16 To date, 11 studies (six on the relationship of salt and health outcomes [17][18][19][20][21][22] and five related to the implementation of salt reduction interventions [23][24][25][26][27] ) have been published. The last implementation review was the first to employ a thematic approach focusing on studies that reported knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors relating to salt.…”

The Science of Salt: A focused review on salt‐related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, and gender differences

“…This further limited our ability to make recommendations on KAB measures and investigate how responses to certain questions are related to salt intake at a population level. In the current review, we did not assess quality as the majority of the salt reduction evaluation studies included here have been reviewed in previous Science of Salt reviews . Also, given the focus was on KAB and there is no gold standard KAB measure with which to compare, we did not feel we could assign quality.…”

Economic damage associated with excess salt intake of Russian people in 2016

“…Большое внимание уделяется также опыту стран по внедрению мер, способствующих снижению потребления соли на популяционном уровне. В регулярно обновляемом обзоре "The Science of Salt" приводятся примеры вмешательств, выполняемых в разных странах и нацеленных на оценку как динамики потребления соли, так и влияние различных вмешательств [24]. Как показали исследования 2015 [25], в 2014г Национальную программу по снижению потребления соли имели уже 75 стран, чаще это страны с высоким уровнем дохода.…”