Dignitaries at the World Kidney Day event organised by Sapiens Health Foundation on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: Akhila Easwaran
Sapiens Health Foundation on Tuesday launched the ‘Losalter Group’, emphasising the need to cut salt intake and a website to create awareness on the impact of salt on health.
At an event held ahead of World Kidney Day 2024, Rajan Ravichandran, chairman of Sapiens Health Foundation, said the ‘Losalter Group’ will create awareness on various issues, including the problems caused by an excess consumption of salt.
“We have received a grant from ‘Resolve to Save Lives’ for ‘Losalter Group’. We will train 300 physicians throughout the country. They will be educated on salt and health and given toolkits to propagate the message to the people,” he said. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a salt intake of less than 5 g per day. He added that the onus of reducing salt intake was with the public, government, and food industry and stressed on ‘signal labelling’ for food products.
Umesh Khanna, Chairman, Mumbai Kidney Foundation, said there was a huge gap in kidney care. “This World Kidney Day, our aim is to translate what we know into what we do,” he said. He stressed the need to make people and general practitioners aware of the risk factors of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and provide them with workable solutions.
Dr. Khanna highlighted the need to target the youth and bring in cultural changes in salt, sugar, and oil consumption. Stating that India is facing an epidemic of non-communicable diseases, he said young Indians were suffering from lifestyle illnesses, and it was rapidly spreading from the urban to the rural population, raising the need to act fast.
Thirumalachari Ramasami, former Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, said that today, a large percentage of treatments was unaffordable for the majority, and so prevention was crucial. Among others, actor Maadhu Balaji spoke.