Salt: The Dying Echoes of the Food Industry

Abstract

The article “Normal Range of Human Dietary Sodium Intake: A Perspective Based on 24-Hour Urinary Sodium Excretion Worldwide” by McCarron et al.1 provides an opportunity to reflect on the major shift in an important public health debate. The issue is no longer whether reducing sodium (salt) intake is of public benefit; it is how best to reduce population salt intake to save the most lives. Therefore, why has the food and beverage industry mounted yet another campaign to try to resist beneficial changes, either directly or indirectly through their academic voices?2–4 Strategies to undermine public health intervention have included biasing research findings, co-opting policy makers and health professionals, lobbying politicians and public officials to oppose public regulation, and encouraging voters to oppose public health regulation.3 As early as 1982, the snack industry was systematically distracting attention from the salt–blood pressure issue by encouraging complacent scientists to divert the focus of research elsewhere.5 Their intent was to delay public health measures. However, since then the weight of scientific evidence has accumulated beyond any reasonable doubt.6–8 This evidence now supports evidence-based policy changes worldwide.9 It is therefore a sad but familiar story when articles like those of McCarron and colleagues appear (and then reappear) in the scientific literature.1 They reflect the huge amount of financial resources still committed to try and deny the harmful effects of salt. Witness the estimated €1 billion spent by the global food and beverage industry alliance to lobby against and sabotage the proposal for a traffic light food labelling system in Europe in 2010.2,3,10–13