Adding more salt to a diet that’s already salty doesn’t make blood pressure go up — it seems like the body has already maxed out its response to salt.

Most people over 50 — even those with normal blood pressure or on blood pressure pills — see their blood pressure drop when they eat less salt.

Eating a lot of salt for 10 days doesn’t make your blood pressure jump around more than usual in healthy young adults, so your blood pressure stays steady even with a salty diet.

As people get older, their blood pressure tends to react more wildly when they eat less salt—meaning older folks might be more sensitive to how much salt they consume.

If you have high blood pressure and eat less salt—cutting from about 4.6 grams down to 1.5–2.4 grams a day—your blood pressure will likely go down a bit, especially if you're older, Black, or have kidney disease or metabolic syndrome.

People who eat a lot of salt (6-12 grams a day) tend to develop higher blood pressure as they get older, while those who eat very little salt (less than 3 grams) don’t see the same increase.