Nutrition is known to exert an undeniable impact on blood pressure with especially salt (sodium chloride), but also potassium, playing a prominent role. The aim of this review was to summarize meta-analyses studying the effect of different electrolytes on blood pressure or risk for hypertension, respectively. Overall, 32 meta-analyses evaluating the effect of sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium on human blood pressure or hypertension risk were included after literature search. Most of the meta-analyses showed beneficial blood pressure lowering effects with the extent of systolic blood pressure reduction ranging between 0.7 (95% confidence interval: 2.6 to 1.2) to 8.9 (14.1 to 3.7) mmHg for sodium/salt reduction, 3.5 (5.2 to 1.8) to 9.5 (10.8 to 8.1) mmHg for potassium, and 0.2 (0.4 to 0.03) to 18.7 (22.5 to 15.0) mmHg for magnesium. The range for diastolic blood pressure reduction was 0.03 (0.4 to 0.4) to 5.9 (9.7 to 2.1) mmHg for sodium/salt reduction, 2 (3.1 to 0.9) to 6.4 (7.3 to 5.6) mmHg for potassium, and 0.3 (0.5 to 0.03) to 10.9 (13.1 to 8.7) mmHg for magnesium. Moreover, sufficient calcium intake was found to reduce the risk of gestational hypertension.(VLID)491878
