Cutting back on salt helps lower blood pressure in overweight or obese adults with high blood pressure, and this benefit works the same way regardless of how well your kidneys are functioning. You don't need to worry about your kidney health levels to get the blood pressure benefits from eating less salt.

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.

When healthy young men eat a lot more salt for a week, their kidneys filter blood faster — not because their blood pressure goes up, but because their kidneys just work harder to get rid of the extra salt.

Eating less salt can help lower your blood pressure a little bit — on average, by about 3-4 points for the top number and 1-2 points for the bottom number, based on studies of many different people.

Eating too much salt might raise your blood pressure, but we’re not sure if cutting back on salt actually helps prevent heart problems because no big, fair studies have proven it yet.

When healthy young men eat a lot more salt, their kidneys filter blood faster — up to 40% more — even though their blood pressure only goes up a tiny bit.