Salt intake among women in an Urban resettlement colony of Delhi

Abstract

Monitoring of population salt intake is essential for compliance with the WHO target of a 30% relative reduction in mean population salt intake. This study was conducted to estimate the daily salt intake and find the associated variables among adult women in an urban resettlement colony of Delhi. In this community-based cross-sectional study, 426 women aged 20-59 years from an urban resettlement colony were randomly selected. Sociodemographic details, anthropometric measurements, blood pressure, and morning spot urine samples were obtained. INTERSALT equation was used to estimate the 24-h salt intake from spot urine sodium. Association of salt intake with related variables was studied using t-test/analysis of variance, and P < 0.05 was considered to be significant. A total of 426 women participated in the study, and 381 participants' urine samples could be collected. The study participants' mean age (standard deviation [SD]) was 34.5 (9.4) years. The mean salt intake (SD, 95% confidence interval) of the participants calculated using the INTERSALT equation was 7.6 (1.7, 7.5-7.8) g/day. The salt intake was significantly associated with educational status, occupation, marital status, socioeconomic status, blood pressure, and waist circumference. Waist circumference was found to have a significant positive linear relationship with daily salt intake. The daily salt intake of this population was well above the recommendation and had a positive linear relationship with waist circumference. Reduction in daily salt intake is a must to control the epidemic of hypertension.