Reducing Salt Can Prevent Children From Gaining Weight!

Salt is a 'poison', which could cause hypertension and lead to stroke and even heart disease, if it is taken in excessive amount over a long period.

A recent British research has even found that reducing the amount of salt that children take could actually keep them slim. Their findings, published in the journal Hypertension on February 20, 2008, reported that children who ate less salt consumed fewer sugary soft drinks could reduce their risk of high blood pressure and obesity. Such practice could help achieve lower rates of heart attack and stroke in their later life.

There is already consensus that taking too much sugar-sweetened soft drink can lead to obesity in young people. This is simply because such drinks are an important source of calorie intake for the youngsters.

The study looked at the data from a 1997’s national survey on more than 2,000 people between the age of 4 and 18 in Britain. There were more than 1,600 boys and girls had salt and fluid intake recorded in a dairy, with everything they ate and drank weighed.

Based on the analyzed data, the researchers discovered that children eating a less salty diet drank less fluid, and estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day. Those children who ate less salt also drank fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks. Therefore, the researchers predicted that a 1-gram reduction in salt would reduce sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption by 27 grams a day, after factoring in age, gender, body weight and level of physical activity.

If children aged 4 to 18 years could cut their salt intake by half, they could reduce approximately two sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week, which is equivalent to a decrease of almost 250 kilocalories per week. Every one pound of body weight equals 3,500 calories.

As such, the researchers remind parents should check labels, choose low-salt food products and not add salt during cooking and at the table. Small reductions in the salt content of 10 per cent to 20 per cent cannot be detected by the human salt taste receptors.

According to the American Heart Association, healthy adults should reduce their sodium intake to less than 2.3 grams per day. This is equivalent to about 1 teaspoon of salt. Data shows that Americans and Britons consume up to 75 per cent of their sodium from processed foods like tomato sauce, soups, canned foods and prepared mixes.

More articles relating salt intake to hypertension, stroke and heart disease can be found at the following link:

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