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.