The emphasis of UK health policy has changed in recent years to focus much more sharply on prevention relative to cure. An article in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine suggests that public health interventions to reduce salt intake could deliver reductions in death and disease akin to smoking cessation campaigns.
In the article, Bibbins-Domingo and colleagues present evidence from the US to suggest that a public health intervention programme to reduce daily salt intake by 3 g (1200 mg of sodium) could reduce the annual number of new cases of coronary heart disease (CHD) by 60,000 to 120,000, stroke by 32,000 to 66,000, and myocardial infarction by 54,000 to 99,000 and reduce the annual number of deaths from any cause by 44,000 to 92,000.
A campaign to reduce salt intake could save 194,000 to 392,000 quality-adjusted life-years and $10 billion to $24 billion in health care costs annually. Even if the intervention reduced salt intake by just 1 g per day, the benefits would still be substantial and would warrant implementation.
Tags: evidence-based policy, public health, USA