Chinese eat more salt than WHO recommends

BEIJING - China National Salt Industry Corporation (CNSIC), the country's biggest salt producer, on Tuesday launched a plan to reduce the nation's salt consumption, as Chinese eat about three times the amount of salt recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

CNSIC General Manager Mao Qingguo said the company would implement an action plan to develop low-sodium salt products and establish a uniform standard for salt substitutes to promote the healthy use of salt.

According to CNSIC data, Chinese directly consume 5.5 million tonnes of salt annually and the salt output reaches about 9 million tonnes, including about 50,000 tonnes of low-sodium salt.

In other words, each Chinese person consumes an average of at least 15 grams of salt every day, compared with five grams recommended by the WHO.

Excess intake of sodium chloride is believed to be greatly associated with cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure and other chronic diseases, which lead to about 85 percent of deaths in China every year, said Zeng Yixin, president of Peking Union Medical College.

Earlier last month, the Ministry of Health and other government departments called for reducing China's per capita daily salt consumption to below 9 grams as part of chronic diseases prevention and control efforts.