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Diet and lifestyle play an important role in maintaining a healthy blood pressure. Whether intake of dairy products could reduce population blood pressure remains to be established. We examined the association of (specific types of) dairy food intake with blood pressure and risk of hypertension using data from two Dutch population-based cohort studies; i.e. the MORGEN study and the Rotterdam study. Blood pressure level was not consistently associated with overall dairy intake or intake of specific dairy foods in 21,553 Dutch adults from the MORGEN study. However, both in the MORGEN study and in the Rotterdam study, the risk of hypertension was reduced by ~20% in subjects who consumed more than 150 mL of low-fat dairy per day. Other dairy foods, i.e. fermented dairy, high-fat dairy, milk and milk products, and cheese, were not consistently associated with risk of hypertension. In addition, we assessed the effect of two dairy components on human blood pressure, i.e. lactotripeptides and cis-9, trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid, in controlled intervention studies. These dairy components did not affect blood pressure.