All you health aficionados, listen up! Before you impart your painful fitness gyaan onto others, you might want to add some more info to your knowledge pool.
The next time you buy your groceries from the local kirana shop or supermarket and carefully scan the nutrition facts behind the product, just zoom in to the sodium levels as well. Turns out, it's not just sugar, carbs, trans and or saturated fats that impact your health, but also salt.
Terms like ‘high-blood pressure leading to cardiovascular diseases’ must sound familiar but we tend to overlook the warnings. Salt can be your nemesis if consumed in excess. Cardiovascular diseases leads to some 2.3 million deaths in India every year.
According to a new study conducted by George Institute for Global Health, Indians consume almost double the daily amount of salt recommended by the WHO.
WHO suggests that the salt intake must not cross 5 gms per day but an average Indian over the age of 19 consumes at least 10.98 gms.
Southern and eastern states have the highest consumption of salt with Tripura topping the list (14 gms per day).
“Over the past 30 years, the average Indian diet has been transformed. The Indians are eating less pulses, fruits and vegetables and more processed and fast food. As a result, their diets are now full of salt, sugar and harmful fats which are driving up rates of high blood pressure, obesity and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes,” Claire Johnson, lead author of the study said.
By 2030, the number of people suffering from high blood pressure in India is set to nearly double to 213 million.
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