Solena

After the Second world war, research on the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases began to be actively conducted in Finland. It was found that mortality from cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms in Finns is very high. This fact the Finns declared a national disaster and demanded decision-making at the state level, which began to pretend to life in the 70-ies. For the most important study on the impact of salt on health and life expectancy, the most "sick" region of Finland with the lowest socio-economic status — North Karelia was chosen. At that time, the region ranked first in the world in the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases. The population of the country ignored vegetable food, the diet was dominated by fatty meat, butter and muffins. There were all risk factors: excess cholesterol, Smoking, fatty foods, fiber and vitamin deficiencies. As in Ukraine, the traditional food of Finns has a lot of animal fats and excess salt – canned cucumbers, tomatoes, salted fish on the table and much more. It was decided to start changing the diet of the Finns. Changing the diet of people with centuries — old eating habits is an extremely difficult task. But doctors and scientists succeeded. Went in the course of social advertising. In parallel with the decrease in salt consumption, actions were carried out to reduce Smoking and consumption of fatty foods. Explanatory work among Finns allowed to limit consumption of animal fats, to increase consumption of vegetable food. And most importantly-it was possible to reduce salt intake per day from 15 g to 9 g (at a rate of 5 g – according to the recommendation of the world Health Organization). To do this, instead of the usual salt, Finns were recommended a salt mixture enriched with 30% potassium salt. Even in school canteens in Finland, suppliers had to reduce the salt content in the products, and ordinary salt there was also replaced by salt with potassium. The results were a sensation: