The 10th network meeting took place from 12 - 13 September 2018 in Rome, hosted by the Ministry of Health of Italy. The WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office of Switzerland co-organized the meeting. The meeting welcomed 35 participants, of which 18 were country representatives. Staff from WHO Headquarters and the WHO Regional Office for Europe also joined.
After the introduction session, six countries gave an update on their national salt reduction strategies. This was followed by information from the WHO Headquarters and WHO Regional Office for Europe about their ongoing initiatives. Countries also presented their latest data on sodium in foods and salt intake. Afterwards, invited speakers presented the most up-to-date evidence on salt reduction policies, including tools to improve consumer access to information (including healthy swaps) and salt taxes. In addition the group discussed novel approaches to collect food composition data from online supermarkets. The first day concluded with an in depth discussion about the recent controversies on salt intake and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) arising from a number of scientific publications that challenge the WHO guidelines. As a result, ESAN developed and published a statement on salt and CVD in December 2018 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939475318303521?via%3Dihub). The statement discusses the scientific evidence and identifies the pitfalls of recent data, which is in many places biased by flawed methodology. The statement concludes that the evidence supporting global actions for a moderate reduction in salt consumption to prevent CVD remains strong and the new studies should not undermine efforts to achieve WHO targets and guidelines. Day 2 was dedicated to the exchange of scientific know how about the monitoring of sodium intake and of the composition of foods as well as sodium and nutrition labelling.
It was also discussed and agreed that the ESAN network and WHO would work together to update information on national salt reduction strategies, including detailed information about salt reduction targets set for different categories of foods. The intention is to exchange on current practice in countries. The ESAN Secretariat will circulate a short survey to network members in February.
