How to subtract days from a plain Date?
Try something like this:
var d = new Date();
d.setDate(d.getDate()-5);
Note that this modifies the date object and returns the time value of the updated date.
var d = new Date();
document.write('Today is: ' + d.toLocaleString());
d.setDate(d.getDate() - 5);
document.write('<br>5 days ago was: ' + d.toLocaleString());
var dateOffset = (24*60*60*1000) * 5; //5 days
var myDate = new Date();
myDate.setTime(myDate.getTime() - dateOffset);
If you're performing lots of headachy date manipulation throughout your web application, DateJS will make your life much easier:
http://simonwillison.net/2007/Dec/3/datejs/