Science Media Centre

As New Zealand policy-makers examine ways to help consumers make healthy food choices, a new Otago study has shown that keeping it simple works best.   Researchers at Otago University have shown that a front-of-pack ‘Traffic Light system’ (see image) using a red-yellow-green colour code  for high, medium and low salt content helps consumers make [...]

Writer Kate Fraser investigates the health effects of salt and what we are doing to mitigate them. An excerpt (from the Press, read in full here): How much salt is too much? The anti-smoking lobby has a pointer or two when it comes to cutting down on salt, writes Kate Fraser . Every other day [...]

A review of scientific literature by The Cochrane Library suggests moderate reductions in salt intake don’t lead to reduced risk of a person suffering cardiovascular events or dying. The paper, Reduced Dietary Salt for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (Cochrane Review)’ by R.S. Taylor et al. will be published [...]

A hard-hitting report from the UK health watchdog group National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) calls on government and the food industry to cut salt and fat from processed foods — a move it says would save tens of thousands of lives a year. The report recommends a public health approach to combat [...]

Tim Cronshaw writes in Business Day about recent US research suggesting that processed meat can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and the reaction from the New Zealand Meat Processors Association, which says the research could mislead kiwis. Kiwis eat less processed meat than those who took part in the study, meaning [...]

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month has prompted calls in Europe for EU-wide salt legislation. In the NEJM paper, the authors undertook a computer simulation showing the effects of population-wide reductions in dietary salt intakes among adults aged 35 to 85 years living in the USA. They claim [...]