Both the Stroke Network and Blood Pressure Canada collaborated on the World Action on Salt and Health survey, but we went into that enthusiastically, thinking Canada would look very good because we had had two to three years of widespread publicity around the issue, and we thought Canadian companies would respond. I think most of us were totally shocked when the results of the survey came out, and it was very disheartening. I think it indicates that a lot of companies have the exact same product in a different country that's very low in sodium, and it speaks favourably for impacts that we could have.
Notably, high sodium is not an issue for just Canada, it's a world issue. Sodium is added to food around the world. It's one of the priorities of the World Health Organization. Very recently the Pan American Health Organization struck a sodium committee to try to develop policy recommendations for reducing sodium in the countries of the Americas, some of which have very high rates. Notably, stroke rates around the world correlate very closely to sodium intake, and that's because they are associated with high blood pressure, but also some other health issues such as gastric cancer. High dietary sodium is also a procarcinogen and has other potential adverse health effects.