In this article:

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/1/1/2

"Sodium and potassium The second factor differentiating the author's studies from many others is optimized mineral nutriture, which has benefits for both cardiovascular reserve in the short term and preservation of lean body mass and function over longer time periods. The Inuit people lived much of the year on coastal ice (which is partially desalinated sea water), and much of their food consisted of soup made with meat in a broth from this brackish source of water. When they went inland to hunt, they traditionally added caribou blood (also a rich source of sodium) to their soup. With these empirically derived techniques, the Inuit culture had adapted the available resources to optimize their intakes of both sodium and potassium.

When meat is baked, roasted, or broiled; or when it is boiled but the broth discarded, potassium initially present in the meat is lost, making it more difficult to maintain potassium balance in the absence of fruits and vegetables. Because our research subjects were accustomed to eating meat, fish, and poultry prepared as something other than soup, we chose to give them most of their sodium separately as bouillon and a modest additional supplement of potassium as potassium bicarbonate. With these supplements maintaining daily intakes for sodium at 3–5 g/d and total potassium at 2–3 g/d, our adult subjects were able to effectively maintain their circulatory reserve (ie, allowing vasodilatation during submaximal exercise) and effective nitrogen balance with functional tissue preservation."

I thought ancient man had a sodium to potassium ratio of more like 1:10-16, favoring potassium.

Any ideas?