School cafeteria experiments for food healthy messages

Abstract

This chapter focuses on salt, which is one of the minerals essential for humans to live. Salt-i.e., sodium-is a necessity for human survival. However, an excessive intake of salt can induce high blood pressure or hypertension. Hypertension is characterized by chronically high blood pressure, defined as systolic blood pressure?>140 mmHg and diastolic pressure?>90 mmHg according to medical guidelines. Hypertension causes cardiology and kidney disease (Intersalt Cooperative Research Group 1988). The onset of hypertension increases rapidly after the age of 45 years (Japan Preventive Association of Life-style related Disease 2015). The medical costs of hypertension in Japan increase tenfold for people aged 45 years and older. It increased to 41.17 billion yen from 3.79 billion yen. Therefore, learning how to reduce salt intake from an early age and making efforts to avoid excessive salt intake are important.