It can be a contributory factor, yes. If your diet is too high in salt, lacking in potassium or magnesium, too high in alcohol or fat, then all these things may adversely affect your blood pressure. Lots of other things influence it too, like your exercise levels, heredity, stress levels, low calcium levels etc. Certain foods can help lower high blood pressure too, do a little research online and you'll find lots of ideas.

You can control high B.P. by eating foods lower in fat, salt and calories (excess weight can cause high B.P.); use spices and herbs instead of salt to flavor foods. If you must have some salt content, use a good quality Tamari as it gives less salt and adds a nice flavor to foods; use less oil, butter, margarine, shortening and salad dressings. Also, if you use a cooking oil, consider using olive oil for delicately flavored foods, corn oil for stronger foods, and peanut oil for deep frying (it cooks at a higher temp which cooks faster and drains more completely, leaving less residual oil in the finished product. Peanut oil is especially good when frying breaded foods). Disclaimer: I am not a member of the medical community, and as such cannot diagnose or prescribe treatment. I highly recommend you check with a physician as soon as you can, to be sure. This can be a killer if you don't take care of it as early as possible.

The nutrients that would cause you to have high blood pressure are those that are rich in fat and sodium. Cholesterol results to clogging of the blood stream and salt contributes to water retention.