Learn How to read Nutrition Fact Labels

Learn to read Nutrition Facts Labels is important in making healthy decisions when you shop for foods. In the prevention of hypertension,this can be your reference for not choosing food high in sodium. Even the food product is high in sodium; you still can consume it by adjusting the serving size according to the food label.

How to read Nutrition Facts Labels in most Malaysia’s food product?

1.   When reading Nutrition Facts Label, the first thing you look is the serving size and the number of servings. For example, in the above product, the number of serving is 1 with each serving size of 250 ml. The size of the serving influences the number of calories and total nutrient intake. So it is important to read it, especially how many servings there are in the food package. By then, determine the portion that you are going to consume.
2. Total energy in kcal give you the idea of how much energy would you get from this product. This is helping you to control you calorie intake within your recommended total energy intake per day. In other word, by concerning about the calorie intake, this will help you to manage your as well. In this example, there are 195 kcal per serving, and 78 kcal per 100 ml. Information on per 100 ml is given for consumer to compare the nutrient with other food product.

General Guide to Calories (based on 2000 calorie diet)

·         40 kcal is low

·         100 kcal is moderate

·         400 kcal ore more is high

    3.   The nutrient, how much?

Macronutrient i.e carbohydrate, fat and protein are listed on top while micronutrient i.e     vitamin and minerals are listed below. Take these nutrients according to Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) Malaysia. Carbohydrate is recommended to be taken in 50-60% of total energy; fat in 25-30%; protein in 15-20%.

Another Example of Nutrition Facts Label which usually found in those imported food and also Malaysia product

Serving Information 

In this example, the serving size of half cup (120 ml) condensed soup is from the can; not after mixing with water. Always look here to see if the serving size should be counted before the preparation and this is very important and is good to follow the serving size to manage your weight.

Calories, Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein

These nutrients information give you the idea of how much of these nutrients and how much should you take to avoid overeating. Daily Value percentages are based on the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA)‘s suggestions that your diet is distributed in a way of 50% carbohydrate, 30% fats, and 20% protein. This is only suggestion, you may calculate by yourself according to your diet.

You can see that Sodium is located on the top instead of below with other vitamins and mineral. This is because sodium is known to be linked to hypertension and since many people tends to consume too much sodium in daily diet; therefore the sodium information is displayed on top to attract the attention of consumer. Sodium content in this example is 890 mg per serving which is considered high as the recommendation nutrient intake for sodium is just 2000 mg per day. Which mean, if you finish the whole can, you will already have enough intake of sodium.

For the fat, we shall concern on the amount of saturated fat and trans fat where these two type of fat is “bad” fat.

Vitamins and Minerals

This section shows the amount of nutrient in the particular product.

Suggested Daily Requirements

Displayed in the bottom portion of the label and may not present on smaller item. It is a reminder or also a helper for consumer to choose and prepare food.

RNI Malaysia

Front-of-pack (FOP)

This is the recent and controversial developments in nutrition labelling in these recent years. We could find FOP in some products in Malaysia’s market. This is an at-a-glance label that tells you the amount of energy (expressed in kcal) a particular food.

This development is done since various studies have reported that consumers kind of neglect the use of nutrition facts label on the back of the product when purchasing. Reasons that have been given of not doing so are lack of time, difficulty in understanding the information, and not knowing how to translate such information into actual food choices.

Therefore, FOP is proposed and used where its formats include simplified logos or symbols such as ticks and smiley faces. This provides a simple information of the food products and also attract the attention of consumers. In Malaysia, FOP are normally provide the amount of energy.

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Who’s in danger of getting Hypertension? Is it you?

Scientist has discovered many risk factors which can increase the risk to develop high blood pressure. Are you a likely candidate for high blood pressure? Risk factors for developing high blood pressure, also called hypertension include:

• Family history

Eye colour, hair colour and type are not only your inherited trait. If your family such as parents, grandparents or any other close blood relative have hypertension, you are more likely to develop it too. Since you can't control genetic, but you can choose to practice healthy lifestyle and lower your other risk factors. Healthy lifestyle choices allow many people with family history of high blood pressure to avoid it themselves.

• Age

The risk of developing hypertension is increased as you aged. Through early middle age, hypertension is more common in men as compared to women. However, the risk of hypertension is the same for both sexes after menopause.

• Lack of physical activity

Being physically active is good as it can help to lower your blood pressure and thus lowering the risk of hypertension. People who are inactive tend to have higher heart rates. The higher is your heart rate, the harder for your heart to work with each contraction and the stronger the force act upon your arteries. This will cause your blood pressure to rise.

• Diet

Your food intake can affect your blood pressure. Foods with low potassium (example of foods high in potassium: banana raisin, tomato,carrot, spinach), high sodium, and low vitamin D (example of foods high in vit. D: egg) will rise your blood pressure. Frequent alcohol consumption can also rise your blood pressure. 

• Overweight and obesity

Overweight and obese person have higher risk of developing hypertension compared to person with normal BMI. An overweight person is classified of having BMI from 25.00 – 29.99 while obese person is classified of having BMI more than 30.00.

How to Calculate your BMI?

Table 1: Classification of BMI according to WHO

Classification	BMI(kg/m2)
Underweight	<18.50
Normal range	18.50 – 24.99
Overweight	25.00 – 29.99
Obese	≥30.00

(Source: Adapted from WHO 1995, WHO, 2000 and WHO 2004)

Table 2: The ASEAN (Malaysian) Classification of BMI

Classification	BMI (Kg/M2)
Underweight	<18.5
Normal range	18.5-22.9
Overweight	23.0-27.4
Pre-obese	27.5-32.4
Obese class I	32.5-37.4
Obese class II	≥37.5
Obese class III	≥40.0

• Stress

Being in stress can increase your blood pressure but this is only temporary effect. As you relax and free yourself from any stress condition, your blood pressure will return to normal.

• Smoking

Smoking can temporary increase your blood pressure. Cigarette contains tobacco which can damage the lining of your artery walls; which causes your arteries to narrow. Hence, increasing your blood pressure.

Sign and symptoms of hypertension

Generally hypertension are asymptomatic (have no signs or symptoms), even though the blood pressure reach dangerous levels.  In some cases, a person can display signs and symptoms of high blood pressure, such as:

•        Headache
•        Blurred vision
•        Nausea
•        Dizziness

What are complications of hypertension that may be encountered?

Hypertension will cause a strain and damage on the organs in the body.
The complications of hypertension that may occur are:

1) Heart disease

• Coronary Heart Disease (narrowing of the small blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart caused by forming of plaque)
• Congestive Heart Failure (a condition in which the heart has lost the ability to pump enough blood to the body's tissues)
• Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (enlargement or overgrowth of the myocardium of the left ventricle due to chronic pressure overload.)

2) Failure of kidney function

• Albuminuria (high level of protein in urine which is more than 300mg of albumin in urine per day)

3) Complication of brain

• Stroke attack.(sudden death of a portion of the brain cells due to a lack of oxygen)

4) Complication of the eyes

•  Hypertensive Retinopathy (bleeding and damage to the retina of the eye)

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Hypertension

What is high blood pressure(BP) or hypertension?

High blood pressure or hypertension is defined as persistent elevation of systolic BP of 140 mmHg or greater and/or diastolic BP of 90 mmHg or greater.

What is blood pressure?

Systolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart contracted. Diastolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart was relaxed.

Blood pressure is written with two readings:

• Above readings shows the systolic pressure.
• Below reading shows the diastolic pressure.

If the blood pressure is written as 120/80 mmHg, this shows your systolic pressure is 120 mmHg and your diastolic pressure is 80 mmHg. MmHg is millimeters Mercury.

Do you have high blood pressure?

Normal blood pressure is when the systolic blood pressure between 120 and 139 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure 80 to 89 mmHg.

If one or two readings were always greater than the value, you may have high blood pressure or hypertension.

Hypertension categories

Category	Systolic (mmHg)		Diastolic (mmHg)
Optimal Prehypertension Hypertension Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3	<120 120-139 140-159 160-179 ≥180	and and/or and/or and/or and/or	<80 80-89 90-99 100-109 ≥110

                                                                                                                (Ministry of Health Malaysia)

Classes of hypertension

High blood pressure/hypertension is divided into two classes, namely;

1)    Primary hypertension - high blood disease that are not related to a specific disease. This disease represents about 90% - 95% of hypertension patients.

2)   Secondary hypertension - high blood disease that caused by a particular disease.
Among the known secondary causes are:

• Kidney disease
• Diseases of the endocrine system
• Blood vessel disease

Let Us Prevent Hypertension...

                                    

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