Health
Barbadians and the Salt Conundrum: Impact on Health Amid Rising NCD Cases
Barbadians struggle with high salt consumption, a longstanding cultural norm exacerbated by modern processed foods. This contributes to rising rates of lifestyle diseases like hypertension and diabetes.
4 min read
Originally published by barbadostoday.bb (opens in new tab)
Barbadians have an unhealthy love affair with salt that is no laughing matter.
Our cultural practices that have seen our majority Black population using preserved foods with high salt content goes back hundreds of years.
It was part of our survival process. The available sources of cheap food often came in the form of meats preserved in brine, such as pigtails, salted fish and in later years, corned beef.
The population’s desire for high-salt foods has also been fuelled by our modern fast food lifestyle as food producers globally continue to push highly processed items that invariably contain high levels of salt and sugar.
High salt and sugar intake are major contributing factors in lifestyle diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, which lead to major health challenges like heart disease and strokes.
A 2015 paper titled The Investment Case for Non‐communicable Disease (NCD) Prevention and Control in Barbados, coordinated by the Ministry of Health, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), laid out a most unflattering picture of the impact of NCDs in our population.
The opening paragraph of the executive summary was compelling reading.
“Over the 15-year period of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the incidence of non-communicable disease (NCD) in Barbados is expected to steadily rise. Out of an island population of 270 000 people, 49 000 people (18 per cent) are currently on treatment for hypertension, with 1 000 new cases of ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke hospitalised each year.
“IHD, diabetes and stroke are the top three causes of death. Scaled-up investment in NCD prevention and treatment is needed to stop the significant health and economic losses associated with NCDs in Barbados.”
It would be excellent news if we were in a position to report that the situation has improved almost a decade on; unfortunately, the NCD crisis has worsened.
In 2015, Barbados was expending approximately $64 million annually to treat cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
In other words, in the last eight years, the island spent at least $512 million on the treatment of just two NCDs in the population. This is uniquely unsustainable in a situation where other conditions such as cancers, as well as preventative healthcare, have to be factored into the total health budget.
In another display of tragic facts about NCDs in Barbados, the report outlined that NCDs represent the leading cause of death in Barbados. In 2012, it disclosed that cardiovascular diseases (including ischemic heart disease, stroke and other circulatory causes) were responsible for 17.3 per cent of all deaths in Barbados.
