I'm going to throw a wrench into the gears by sharing the following: I had high blood pressure- not medication-triggering, just high-eyebrow stuff when I was younger (30s-early 40s). As a teenager I learned of the dangers of salt and weaned it out of my diet.
I got married and am the cook of the family, so after much complaining I started to add salt to my dishes when I cooked.
My blood pressure when down. Not by a little, but to the "wow your blood pressure is amazing" category (105 or 110). So, yeah, I don't think we know how salt works.
NB my exercise/habits stayed pretty much the same in this period.
My cardiologist told me never to try a low-sodium diet without talking with him first. He is very up-to-date on research and said that an equal number of people see blood pressure increase on low-sodium as see blood pressure decrease but for many (most?) people the difference is negligible. In other words if you are one of the ones who is very sensitive to changes in sodium you are as likely to be harmed as helped by lowering sodium.
Another n=1. I've been on 2 blood pressure pills for 2 years I was reading about very low sodium diets, and decided to start an experiment on Thursday. Eating only unprocessed foods, non-dairy/meat/fish. I dropped the diuretic pill at the beginning, and have now dropped the ARB medication. Gone from average 140/95 to 124/84 in 4 days.
It seems possible that there are widely varying responses, and for those like me who are salt sensitive, then low sodium may mean 500mg rather than 1500/2250mg that various research suggests. In hunter/gatherer societies, 500mg would be a more typical level one would receive - this research refers to 4 tribes with lowest sodium intake (& lowest BPs) in INTERSALT study.
http://publicacoes.cardiol.br/abc/2003/8003/80030005i.pdf.
Also, came across, an article which mentioned no other animal has a sodium potassium balance with more sodium than potassium which is what most humans in 'modern' world now have.
I got married and am the cook of the family, so after much complaining I started to add salt to my dishes when I cooked.
My blood pressure when down. Not by a little, but to the "wow your blood pressure is amazing" category (105 or 110). So, yeah, I don't think we know how salt works.
NB my exercise/habits stayed pretty much the same in this period.