First post on this forum and it’s a bit of a sciency one…
I was recently looking into 2 different supplements and noticed that they seemed similar to one another so I reached out to a good friend of mine to see if there was any difference between beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate free acid & beta-hydroxybutyrate. His interpretation was that “the former will absorb faster but usually this marginal difference won’t have any physiological benefit unless it’s an effect you want faster - usually related to faster recreational effect”.
So, since “recreational effect” came into the picture, let me explain what these two things are, since they are NOT recreational products…
beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate free acid is a marketed supplement for building muscle mass, strength, and power with a well-designed (albeit small sample size) double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial behind it. You can read it for yourself here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019830/
The next, beta-hydroxybutyrate, is better known as “Perfect Keto”, a supplement used to more or less force someone into ketosis. Now, I’m new to such supplements so I have no idea what the science behind them looks like, or if there even is any - but the Amazon reviews suggest that people are peeing out ketones in very high quantities (I saw claims of 8+ on pee sticks which I realize aren’t the greatest tool) when taking this stuff.
So, here were my thoughts…
I more-or-less trialed the keto diet for about 3 months from the middle of November to the middle of February and really liked it. I dropped about 12 pounds, obviously not all of it body fat (185 to 173). I slowly reintroduced carbs, each week adding about 5-10g to my daily diet so going from about 25-30g per day to 30-40g per day for 7 days, then bumping up another 5-10g the following week. Once I hit about 85g per day, I actually started losing weight again and got down to about 169 lbs. I’ve maintained 169 since.
Ultimately, I couldn’t care less what the scale says, I’m more concerned with athletic function and appearance (gotta keep my wife interested - ya know?). So, aesthetics are important to me and that’s obviously where muscle building comes in. I work out between 4-6 days per week, depending on the program I doing. I do very little, if any, traditional cardio and instead, let my heart rate rise and fall in a “HIIT” type pattern simply lifting weights (moderate-to-heavy weights depending on the set with about 15-45 seconds rest between sets.
By way of recommendation, I found the study linked above and that product is available as a supplement called “Clear Muscle” and it’s marketed by Muscle Tech which is the company which sponsored the study. You get 84 servings per container and one serving is 1,000mg (aka, 1g) of beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate free acid per dose and you’re supposed to take 3 servings per day for a total of 3g (this is consistent with the study design).
Now, Perfect Keto gives you 11.38g of beta-hydroxybutyrate per serving and their label isn’t 100% clear, but it appears that they only recommend taking it once per day, but at various times and for various purposes depending on the individual. Obviously, 11.38g once per day of Perfect Keto is almost 4x the dose of “Clear Muscle”.
So, if what my friend said is true, that they are basically the same less an inconsequential difference in absorption, why would I bother taking the beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate free acid capsules (2 each serving) 3 times per day (6 total capsules) when I could halve the dose of Perfect Keto and get at least as good of an anabolic effect while also aiding my plan to dive back into keto for the longer term?
So, to those who might know more than me from a chemistry perspective and/or specific knowledge or experience with these two products, am I on the right track with this train of thought?
Thanks for any insight!