Letter re: Influence of sodium consumption and associated knowledge on poststroke hypertension in Uganda

Abstract

Kaddumukasa et al.1 should be commended for documenting the gaps in public knowledge of the health risks of high salt consumption in Uganda. Only 43% of the study participants had basic dietary salt knowledge.1 Since the participants were stroke survivors recruited from the national hospital and may have received some dietary counseling by health providers prior to enrollment in the study, rates of basic dietary salt knowledge are likely even lower in the general population. A corollary public health knowledge gap is the extremely low rate of awareness of hypertension in Uganda. A national cross-sectional survey conducted in 2014 found that only 7.7% of participants with hypertension were aware of their blood pressure.2 Rapid urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa is changing the dietary habits of Africans. Large grocery supermarkets are now commonplace in Kampala, Uganda, and other large cities. Consumption of invisible salt in factory-made breads, other baked goods, and snack foods is a new threat to the cardiovascular health of Africans.