If you're a middle-aged adult with slightly high blood pressure, having more sodium than potassium in your body may raise your chances of heart disease by 24% for every unit increase in the balance — and this combo predicts heart problems better than either mineral alone.

If you're a middle-aged adult with slightly high blood pressure, peeing out more potassium might mean you have a lower chance of heart disease — one study found a 36% lower risk for those with the highest levels, but the result wasn't strong enough to be sure it wasn't just by chance.

For people who already have heart disease, having just the right balance of salt and potassium in their urine — not too much, not too little — seems to be linked to the lowest chance of heart problems or dying from any cause. Too little or too much of this balance is linked to higher risks.

If you have pre-hypertension, having more sodium than potassium in your urine might mean you’re more likely to die from any cause — even if you’re not eating a ton of salt. It’s not just how much salt you eat, but the balance between salt and potassium that might matter more for living longer.

For people with slightly high blood pressure between 30 and 54 years old, how much salt they eat — measured by what shows up in their urine — doesn’t seem to clearly raise their risk of heart disease when looked at on its own.

For older adults who are overweight but don’t have heart disease or high blood pressure, eating more salt than potassium might raise their chance of dying within 5 years by about 19%—so it’s not just how much salt or potassium you eat, but how they balance each other.