Experts, stakeholders warn on dangers of salt to kidney, heart, other organs
…educate on salt intake limit
Daniel Kanu
Civil Society Organization, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), has raised the alarm on dangers associated with the consumption of excess salt by Nigerians.
This is as ÇAPPÀ revealed that Nigerians were dying steadily through ailments incured over time due to excess consumption of salt / sodium.
CAPPA also called for a legislation to reverse the dangerous trend, lamenting that Nigeria currently records an estimated daily salt consumption reaching up to 5.8 grams per day, which exceeds the World Health Organizations (WHO) recommended limit of two grams of sodium daily or less than five grams of salt per day – just one teaspoon of salt daily.
In 2017, for instance, an estimated 100,000 deaths occurred in Nigeria due to cardiovascular diseases (Diseases that affects the heart and blood vessels), according to data shared by the University of Abuja Cardiovascular Research Unit.
CAPPA Executive Director, Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi, made the revelation in his speech at the Journalism Training on “Salt Reduction” in Lagos on Thursday, April 4, 2024.
The event was packaged by CAPPA and Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI).
Akinbode said that it was worrisome that Nigeria was currently grappling with a huge burden of non- communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, caused by salty food, which result in death and disability.
Oluwafemi also said that hypertension, mainly caused by an increased intake of salt or sodium, accounts for 12% of deaths in Nigeria.
“With high consumption of salt, Nigeria is currently grappling with a huge burden of non- communicable diseases (NCDs).
“Our role as a health-focused civil society organization is to help the public understand the dangers of their choices, especially when consumption is driven by a gap in knowledge, when it comes to food. We also constantly engage with government to put in place the relevant legislations to protect Nigerians,” Oluwafemi said.
The CAPPA boss, however, called on the.media to play a vital role in the campaign against salty food to achieve the necessary salt reduction target for a healthy nation.
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“You also have an obligation to help Nigerians understand the gimmicks of the food production industry that promote unhealthy foods as the norm,” Olufemi noted.
On the effect of the advocacy on industries and manufacturers, Dr Jerome Mefeni, who spoke on “Salt Consumption in Nigeria and the Need for policy intervention,” said that it would not have any negative effect on them.
He said that health of Nigerians was more important than the profit the industries declare periodically.
A more recent data by the Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance, put deaths related to cardiovascular and other non-communicable diseases in Nigeria at about 12%..
“Many of those deaths could have been avoided with reduction in salt intake,” according to Dr Mafeni who is also member of the board of trustees of Network for Health Equity and Development.
Mafeni explains where this excess salt comes from. “Salt is used as a preservatives for food whether for meat, for fish, or any type of food you want to preserve. People eating kilishi (dried meat), suya (smoked spiced meat), you have plenty of salt. Most of your cans foods, you have plenty of salts in them to serve as preservatives.
“ When women cook, they boil the meat with plenty of salt. And when they finish with all that salt, they carry all the water and still pour it into the soup. And after the soup has been cooked, they will still add salt again. So, weve been acculturated to play with salt. And that is what has been killing us,” he noted.
According to Mafeni : “The reason why salt is so closely associated with cardiovascular diseases is because salt regulates the ability of the body to maintain osmosis. So, if you take too much salt in your diet, your body draws in plenty of water into your blood system. When it draws in plenty of water into your system, you have your vessels expand and you have plenty of blood volume passing through your heart, passing through your blood vessels that put extra pressure on the heart. And that is what leads to blood pressure.
“Once you start having blood pressure, many things go wrong thereafter because the increased pressure of the blood on your various organs begin to give the organs problem.
“High blood pressure passing through the kidneys causes kidney disease. High blood pressure passing through the brain causes stroke. High blood pressure passing through any organ in your body causes its own problems. The longer you have this high blood pressure, the more organs in your body begin to damage. And when organs in your body are damaging, and the body is trying to repair the damages occurring, sometimes the repair gets out of hand, then you get cancer or you get kidney failure.”
Mefeni appealed to Nigerians to embrace local spices and avoid salt for healthy living.
Bukola Olukemi Odele, a Food & Nutrition Scientist and programme officer for Cardiovascular Health at CAPPA, advised the media to make salt reduction a priority issue on the public agenda, increase awareness about the public health and economic consequences of high salt intake, educate the public on practical ways to reduce salt consumption, deliberately use data and information received from collaborators to shape public opinion about salt reduction, among others.
In her presentation, Vanessa Alfa of the University of Abuja Cardiovascular Research Unit, identified lack of knowledge of risk posed by excess salt in food, Customs and cultural tastes for high-salt diets, increased consumption of out-of-home cooked foods among others as the cause of high salt intake.
She recommended the following as solution in mitigating the consumption of salt in meals; “Community mobilizations/advocacy on the harmful effects of excess salt intake, Health education through trusted sources (health, education, religious leaders), use of children to support behavior change in-home cooked meals, improving nutritional labelling, public education on how to interpret labels and standardize, clarify, and simplify label formatting.”