Dietary sodium and the health of Canadians

We would like to alert the readers of the Canadian Pharmacists Journal to an updated fact sheet and call to action on dietary sodium.1 The fact sheet and call to action highlights that high dietary sodium remains a major health risk to Canadians. About one-third of hypertension is attributed to high dietary sodium, which translates to approximately 2 million Canadians with hypertension related to excess sodium consumption. Other important facts that many may be unaware of include rapid ingestion of sodium (at 10 times or more the average daily level of consumption) can cause acute death, and high sodium intake is a probable procarcinogen for gastric cancer. Most are likely aware that Canadians eat too much sodium and that current efforts to reduce dietary sodium have had little impact. Hence, the call to action makes important recommendations to federal, provincial and territorial governments to more effectively implement comprehensive policies to reduce sodium in Canada’s food supply. Most of the call to action recommendations are included in the 2010 Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada, which received very strong provincial and territorial support in 2012 but which to date has not been implemented.2,