Cutting back on salt for just one week lowers blood pressure by about 8 points in most people over 50, even if they’re already taking blood pressure medicine — and it works just as well whether they have high blood pressure or not.

Cutting back on salt in your diet lowers your blood pressure—on average, by about 4 points for the top number and 2 points for the bottom number.

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.

If you eat much less salt, your blood pressure will go down—lower salt means lower blood pressure, and the less salt you eat, the more your pressure drops, with no point where cutting more salt stops helping.

If you cut down how much salt you eat from a lot to very little, your blood pressure will go down—by about 15 points for the top number and 10 points for the bottom number—and this works best if you already have high blood pressure.

Cutting down on salt lowers blood pressure more for people who already have high blood pressure than for those with normal blood pressure—about 2.5 times more.