Hugh Edward de Wardener CBE FRCP (8 October 1915 – 29 September 2013)[1] was a British medical doctor who was an expert in the treatment of kidney disease.

Educated at Malvern College and St. Thomas' Medical School, he worked at a hospital until the outbreak of World War II.

He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps during the war and was posted to Singapore soon before its fall to the Japanese.

He spent the rest of the war as a POW in the notorious Changi camp, during which time while treating fellow prisoners he established that beriberi is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin B1, not as was previously thought by excessive consumption of alcohol.

The book documents scientific evidence of the negative health effects of excess salt that is added to processed foods and how excessive salt intake increases the occurrence of hypertension and increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.