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In honour of Salt Awareness Week, we speak to Mariska van Aswegen from Pharma Dynamics - South Africa's leading provider of cardiovascular medication - about SA's love for 'excessive' salt, and the related health risks. Watch.
Salt is the major factor that increases blood pressure and is therefore indirectly responsible for many heart attacks and strokes annually. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) today claims more lives than all forms of cancer combined, and according to Pharma Dynamics, medicine sales related to heart and blood pressure conditions are at an all-time high.
"SA's salt consumption could be as high as 40g a day, which is way above the World Health Organisation's recommended intake of less than 5g a day," says Mariska.
"When it comes to our discretionary salt consumption, which is the amount of salt we add to food ourselves, it is as high as 40% a day. In most other Westernised countries, the discretionary use of salt is in the region of 15%."
