For every 1/4 teaspoon of salt you cut out of your diet, your systolic blood pressure drops by about 1 point, and your diastolic by about 1/3 of a point.

If you eat less salt—about 2.3 grams less per day—your blood pressure will likely go down by about 5.6 points for the top number and 2.3 points for the bottom number, no matter if you're already taking blood pressure medicine.

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 cut down on salt from a lot to very little, your top blood pressure number might drop by about 7 to 9 points — and the higher your blood pressure was to start with, the more it drops.

If you cut down on salt, your blood pressure drops more if you already have high blood pressure than if you don’t—and the drop is about 6.5 mm Hg higher for every 100 mmol of salt you reduce.

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.