PS-P14-8: BRINGING SALT REDUCTION TO THE ACTIVITIES OF COMMUNITY SERVICE ORGANIZATION KURE ROTARY CLUBS. SMALL EFFORTS TO REDUCE SALT

Abstract

I am just a practicing physician. Although I cannot move society or influence medical policies, I have nevertheless been steadily building up small salt reduction activities with people in the community since 2008. Since there is a limit to individual efforts to reduce salt, the ultimate goal is to make society as a whole a low-salt society where people can automatically reduce salt in their normal lives. To achieve this, it is important to work to deepen understanding not only among medical professionals, but also across the board, including companies, government, mass media, and education. This time I introduce a community service organization (Kure Rotary Club) that I am a member of, which has started a salt reduction activity that takes advantage of the characteristics of the organization. This organization is composed of managers and executives from many professions in the community, and the members have a great deal of influence, so we thought it would be effective in spreading the word about salt reduction. We have weekly meetings over lunch and learn about community service and other topics. The first thing we did at this meeting was to have a low-sodium and potassium-enriched lunch once a month for all 70 members, with the standard for one serving being less than 2.5 g of salt and more than 1,000 mg of potassium. The day is named “Natokari Lunch Day” and is well known. In addition, to encourage citizens to reduce salt intake, a video supporting salt reduction has been created and distributed on YouTube. Many members, including a director of a major local hospital, a nutritionist, a researcher, a financier, a shipping businessman, a restaurant owner, a miso manufacturer, a Shinto priest, a lawyer and others appear in the videos and relay short speeches of one minute or less about how they are reducing salt and their recommendations for salt reduction. I believe that many doctors in the world are members of Rotary clubs. I hope this will inspire your activities. We have been conducting a series of small activities. For example, we held the “Low-Sodium Summit in Kure 2012,” which led to the start of low-sodium school lunches at elementary schools in Kure City. We have also had many restaurants serve low-sodium dishes, bakeries make low-sodium bread, and we have produced a book of low-sodium recipes. These are just a few examples of activities that medical practitioners can do