There’s an interesting new study published in Lancet this week; in China, the #1 killer is hypertension. This, along with stroke, are common killers all over the world. The problem in China is that treatment levels are much lower than in other countries, especially in rural areas.

An easy thing to help high blood pressure would be to cut down on salt intake. There’s a lot of salt in soy sauce and packaged foods. This certainly isn’t an issue just in China! The author mentions:

…one of the most important issues now is prevention, promoting the deleterious effects of high blood pressure to the people of China: “For example, we need to educate Chinese people that a high sodium diet will increase their blood pressure and increase their risk of stroke.” This will require a different tactic to that employed in Western countries, he said, because Chinese people, especially in rural areas, do not tend to get their excess salt from prepackaged foods; rather, they use soy sauce and in addition add salt to their own cooking. Replacement of regular sodium salt with reduced-sodium (potassium) salt “will enable us to reduce a lot of BP-related disease,”…

I had created a slide show about high blood pressure causing heart attacks and strokes, discussing how to prevent and treat it – without medicines. High blood pressure is largely a lifestyle-modified disease; you have a lot of personal control over this!

Article: High BP Leading Preventable Risk Factor for Death in Chinese.