The average amount of salt in loaves of bread in UK supermarkets has fallen significantly.
Over the last ten years, the amount of sodium chloride contained in the average packaged bread product at shops has dropped by 20 per cent.
This is according to new research published in the BMJ Open, which was conducted by scientists at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London.
Researchers studied more than 40 different supermarket bread products in 2001 and over 200 ten years later to see whether a campaign by health campaigners to reduce the amount of salt consumed had paid off.
The number of loaves managing to reach the government’s 2012 target of having less than one gram of the mineral per 100g rose from 28 per cent up to 71 per cent over the course of the ten-year period.
There is extensive evidence indicating consuming elevated levels of salt can risk an increase in blood pressure and thus the development of diabetes, cardiovascular difficulties and kidney disease .
Closing statements in the study argued: “Governments around the world now need to follow the UK’s lead and set targets on the biggest contributors of salt to the diet so as to prevent thousands of deaths every year.”
