Countries with regulations protecting people from industrially produced trans fat tripled over the past year
WHO report reveals people in high-income countries are protected by policies on trans fat elimination, but low-income countries are being left behind
Op-Ed: How to protect your heart without sacrificing taste: Eliminate trans fat from your food
Removing trans fat from the global food supply saves lives and reduces the burden on health care by preventing heart attacks.
Low sodium salt could save millions of lives
Our president and CEO Dr. Tom Frieden called for governments around the world to make low-sodium salts more accessible, citing a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that highlights the potential of low-sodium salts to prevent heart attack and stroke and save lives.
LINKS Community launches Public Funds for Healthy Foods Campaign
The LINKS Community kicked off a “Public Funds for Healthy Foods” campaign to encourage advocacy for health public food procurement policies that include limits on sodium and trans fats. Read more on what you can do to promote healthy public food procurement policies in your community.
Grants awarded to three organizations championing trans fat elimination advocacy
Resolve to Save Lives awarded grants to Advocacy Center ‘LIFE’, Nepal Heart Foundation, and Village Health Action for trans fat elimination advocacy projects in Ukraine, Nepal and Burundi. The new grantees will support life-saving policies by collaborating with ministries of health, offering technical guidance, and leading public awareness campaigns.
Global Elimination of Deadly Trans Fat Advances with Announcement of New Grant Winners
Programs in Burundi, Nepal and Ukraine will champion lifesaving trans fat elimination policies
ImagineLaw champions successful healthy food procurement policy in Quezon City, Philippines
Quezon City became the first city in the Philippines to offer only food options that are low in salt and free from trans fats in its public institutions, departments and offices. Resolve grantee ImagineLaw successfully advocated for the food procurement policy, which establishes nutritional standards for foods served and sold in public settings.
Philippines issues administrative order to eliminate industrially produced trans fats
On July 20, best practice regulations eliminating trans fat went into effect in the Philippines. Our president and CEO Dr. Tom Frieden released a statement on growing global momentum for trans fat elimination and how this important policy step will save money, promote health equity and build regulatory systems that can improve food safety.
Statement from Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, on the Philippines Department of Health’s new administrative order to eliminate industrially produced trans fats:
“Today, the Philippines adopted a best-practice policy to eliminate industrially produced trans fat from its food supply—becoming the 45th country to take this life-saving action. We applaud the Philippines Department of Health for this bold commitment that will protect more than 108 million people from trans fat, a dangerous chemical food additive that increases the risk of heart attack and death.
Third round of LINKS grants awarded to 9 winners
We announced nine recipients of LINKS third round of grant funding. Over $1.1 million was awarded to projects in eight countries that will expand care for high blood pressure and support trans fat elimination and sodium reduction policies.
Resolve to Save Lives awards over $1 million in grants to improve cardiovascular health during COVID-19 pandemic
9 programs will save lives by improving cardiovascular health
Taming the World’s Leading Killer: High Blood Pressure
Our President and CEO Dr. Tom Frieden released an OpEd on CNN about the urgent need to address high blood pressure and what we can do to stop this killer: lower daily salt consumption and promote proper treatment and medications.
New Global Sodium Benchmarks for Different Food Categories
We supported the launch of WHO’s new Global Sodium Benchmarks for Different Food Categories . The benchmarks are a guide for countries and industry to reduce the sodium content in 18 categories of processed foods, which are a primary or rapidly increasing source of sodium in many countries. This is an important step toward meeting […]
New WHO benchmarks help countries reduce salt intake and save lives
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new set of global benchmarks for sodium levels in more than 60 food categories that will help countries reduce sodium contents in foods to improve diets and save lives.
New research shows impact of heart disease prevention in low- and middle-income settings
In a special section of its latest issue, the Journal of Clinical Hypertension expands the evidence base on successful reduction of cardiovascular disease in low- and middle-income countries through creative, scalable, patient-facing programs and public health policies
Request for Proposals Open – Trans Fat Advocacy Mini Grants
We announced our request for proposals for advocacy activities to accelerate best-practice trans fat elimination policies, including engagement with policy makers and influencers. Proposals are due May 20th. Download the complete Request for Proposals here.
Statement from Dr. Tom Frieden on Global Trans Fat Elimination Progress
On April 1, regulations banning artificial trans fat in food products went into effect in the European Union, bringing the global number of people protected by best practice trans fat elimination policies to 2.9 billion. Our President and CEO Dr. Tom Frieden released a statement on the growing momentum for eliminating artificial trans fats and […]
Statement from Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, on global progress to eliminate artificial trans fats
Action to protect people against trans fat also builds regulatory systems that can improve food safety.
New Online Course on Global Sodium Reduction Strategies
Johns Hopkins University launched a free online course that connects program managers and policy makers with evidence-based strategies and practical tools to implement salt reduction initiatives, including promotion of low-sodium salt and public procurement policies, in their communities.
India’s National Low Salt Cooking Challenge
The Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI), India held a National Low Salt Cooking Challenge, a virtual cooking competition with more than 200 participants from different regions of the country. Each team prepared one complete meal using less salt, without compromising the taste and flavor of the food.
Sri Lanka Ministry of Health announces new hypertension management program
Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health announced a new program to improve access and affordability of health services to address high blood pressure and heart disease. The program will use a patient-centered model of care and will also address high sodium consumption – a risk factor that increases the chance of high blood pressure and heart […]
Salt Awareness Week 2021
For this year’s Salt Awareness Week, we partnered with World Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (WASSH) on a joint webinar highlighting successful salt reduction initiatives from grantee partners in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Morocco.
Mass media campaign on salt reduction launched in Ethiopia
A new mass media campaign targeting high salt consumption and promoting healthy diets launched in Ethiopia, and will be shown on television, heard on radio and seen on social media for the next month. This is the first evidence-based behavior change campaign that Resolve to Save Lives has supported in Ethiopia to reduce high intake […]
New Campaign Encourages Ethiopians To Cut Salt Consumption in Half And Prevent Unhealthy Diets
High Salt Consumption Puts Ethiopians at Risk of Heart Disease and Death
Food Fight: Fighting for Healthier Food is a Life-or-Death Struggle
Poor quality nutrition kills more than 10 million people every year. Governments need to make improving nutrition quality a public health priority by focusing on four changes: 1) Eliminating artificial trans fat, 2) Reducing sodium intake, 3) Increasing potassium intake, and 4) Limiting added sugar. Read more from our Resolve to Save Lives team.
India’s National Low Salt Cooking Challenge
Eat Right India is calling all aspiring chefs and nutritionists to the challenge of creating low salt and tasty home cooked Indian meals. The purpose of the virtual event is to promote a reduction of salt in foods and improve heart health. The submissions are open from Jan. 27 until Feb. 15. Submit your entries […]
LINK webinar: Salt Wars
ICYMI: A discussion on America’s deadliest ingredient: salt. Hear from Salt Wars author, Michael F. Jacobson about how packaged and restaurant food have outrageously high sodium content levels. Reducing sodium intake by 30% could save 1.6 million lives each year.
Action framework for developing and implementing public food procurement and service policies for a healthy diet
In partnership with the World Health Organization, we developed a guide on implementing nutritional standards to make healthy food choices the default option in public settings such as schools, government work places and child care centers.
WHO urges governments to promote healthy food in public facilities
Consuming a healthy diet from pre-birth to the last days of life is vital to prevent all forms of malnutrition as well as diabetes, cancers and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
WHO announces first-ever certificate program for trans fat elimination
We supported the launch of WHO’s first-ever certification program for countries that have enacted best policies for eliminating trans fat in their countries.