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.

Cutting back on salt might seem healthy, but for some people who don’t have high blood pressure, it could accidentally raise or lower their blood pressure in ways that aren’t good.

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.

For people with slightly high blood pressure, eating more or less salt doesn’t seem to change their chance of dying, no matter how old they are, their gender, race, or whether they tried to lose weight — this pattern held true for over 20 years.

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.

Eating a lot of salt for 10 days doesn’t make your blood pressure jump around more than usual in healthy young adults.