I was testing my breathalizer the other day and recorded a fairly high BAC reading of 0.07, just below the legal limit in many places, even though I had consumed no alcohol.
It seems that breath acetone from Ketosis can be converted into isopropanol, a substance that some breathalyzers may detect and mistake for ethanol.
So just a warning that you may run into this problem if breathalized by police. Explain that you’re in Ketosis and request a blood test instead.
The cheap hack for a ketone breath monitor is an alcohol breath monitor, about $10 on amazon. So yeah. I’ve heard the police breathalyzers are more sophisticated, but the blood test is probably not a bad idea.
Yep my 30 years old alcohol tester definitely reacts to keto breath.
As a side note:
How did they make things that last for decades back then…? It still works, drink one beer, wait ten minutes and it shows the correct reading.
I used it heavily when I was still drinking in the 90s / early 2000s. Touring with band on a motorcycle,party every night…
This has been known for a while, but it’s good to have a reminder.
I wonder what happens if you’re in ketosis AND drink one drink? Is there some type of additive effect?
I have an unforgettable experience:
I was working in a summer camp for disabled. After the camp was over ,we had a party. I had been in very low carb keto for who knows how long and had no drink during that time either. Years anyway.
Okay let´s party. I had one ( 1 ) beer and passed out within ten minutes, missed the whole thing, dinner,Sauna, everything. Sleep came like a freight train. Carb bomb + alcohol = sleep.
I believe this might be a problem limited to cheap home breath testers, but your advice is well worth remembering in any case. Thanks.
I worried about this one years ago when I bought a Ketonix, I tried some of those pocket ones and they definetly showed it, but then had a cop buddy of mine breathalyze me and it showed a .01 when the pocket one showed a .06 so either luck, or the real ones are a lot more honed in to what they’re supposed to be looking for.
I wonder what they really are looking for?
I’ve used Ketonix breath ketone analyzer, but I don’t have one of the cheap home breath analyzers to test. I don’t use the Ketonix at all anymore, because it differed from my blood ketones, and I only periodically track ketones when I’m looking for something particular.
Ooof, this is scary, I can’t offered to continue to be fat and sick but a DUI could ruin my career.
Don’t worry about it Delbert. Professional breathalyzers are unlikely to have this problem ( as mentioned above) and even if it did, you could simply explain the situation to law enforcement and request a blood test to verify.
You would also have passed all other field sobriety tests.
I hope that this never becomes necessary. Your vehicle stays where you were stopped.
Cops will not wait for the test results,neither take you back to your vehicle -if it is still there where it was left… and they just took your license so you can not drive, no matter what you explain.
It takes a complaint route to get your license back, you need someone else to get your vehicle back. Then wait for court results.
Well fortunately as someone explained above, it seems professional law enforcement breathalyzers are not likely to make the mistake.