WASHINGTON, Feb 21: Reducing the amount of salt that children eat could provide a short-cut to keeping them slim, British researchers reported on Wednesday.

They found that children who ate less salt drank fewer sugary soft drinks and could reduce their risk of high blood pressure and obesity.

Writing in the journal Hypertension, they said this could lower rates of heart attack and stroke in later life.

“Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are a significant source of calorie intake in children,” said Dr. Feng He of St. George’s University of London.

“It has been shown that sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption is related to obesity in young people,” He added in a statement.

“If children aged 4 to 18 years cut their salt intake by half, there would be a decrease of approximately two sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week per child, so each child would decrease calorie intake by almost 250 kilocalories per week.”

One pound of body weight equals 3,500 calories.

He and colleagues analysed data from a 1997 national survey of more than 2,000 people between 4 and 18 in Britain. More than 1,600 boys and girls had salt and fluid intake recorded in a diary, with everything they ate and drank weighed.

“We found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank less fluid,” He said. “From our research, we estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day.”

The children who ate less salt also drank fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks.—Reuters