Dr Boz Calculates levels of autophagy using blood sugar/blood ketones ratio

[Karim_Wassef]

I measure 5 times a day… morning and evening and then before weightlifting, after weightlifting and before eating, and then after eating

morning
-measure 1
…
-measure 2
workout
-measure 3
eat OMAD
-measure 4
…
-measure 5
sleep

If I do anything special like sauna, UV, or cold baths, I measure before and after so I can determine the effect. I use the Precision Xtra blood ketone and glucose. Costs $1.50 for ketone and glucose, so $7.50 a day

but I also fast many days so I replace my food with measure . I’ve been doing this for months so I can see the trend over different events. I use Glucose / Ketone / 18 and then created 5 bands for myself:

0-1 very deep autophagy
1-3 deep ketosis - therapeutic autophagy
3-6 moderate keto - functional weight loss
6-9 low keto - weight maintenance
9-12 (or higher) - no ketosis, highly anabolic (fat or muscle depends on demand)

[Karim_Wassef]

These are my results over the last few months. I haven’t uploaded and updated for a few weeks but I can do that if it helps anyone.

[daddyoh]

This is awesome. Do you GKI numbers go to the lower range only when fasting or at other times?

[Karim_Wassef]

I usually fast 3 days a week, so it’s spiky (obviously). That’s why you can see my GKI going from 9 (red) to 1 (blue) in 48 hrs… fasting keeps the trend going and forces my body into deep autophagy

Also, it used to be easier in earlier keto… now, it’s hard to get to ketones above 5 without multi-day fasting. I’m planning on a 40 day + fast, so we’ll see how that goes.

I will add that the GKI index can sometimes be artificially low because ketones drop post workouts while glucose doesn’t change much. I don’t know how to interpret this, but it’s an observation.

[Ozzy]

Here is a video that talks about GKI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmDoiCDYQHY&feature=youtu.be

and here is a calculator: https://keto-mojo.com/pages/glucose-ketone-index-gki

I dont know if this is relevant to op, sorry if not

[daddyoh]

I calculate both ratios so that I don’t have to worry about whoever I am speaking to knowing one and not the other.

[Herb_Martin]

I wrote the following before reading all of the comments – which do seem to confirm most of my suppositions. At the risk of confusing someone, the post is as originally written but I am going to re-read Karim’s info which is very helpful (though I don’t fully understand his graph yet) and additional references to GKI.

About minute 22-26 in Dr. Boz’s linked video Autophagy and Glucose Ketone Ration
Glucose Ketone Ratio needs to have UNITS specified to keep this straight.
Glucose in mg/dL makes 100 a sensible reading
Ketone in mmol(/L) is what makes sense with the numbers you are giving.
Seyfried uses a conversion factor with these units rather than a straight ratio but then doesn’t give a set of clear targets (that I’ve found) but seems to want cancer patients at less than 1.0

The glucose ketone index calculator: a simple tool to monitor therapeutic...

So Seyfried’s Glucose Ketone Index (GKI) looks to be a factor 18.016 (Glucose to mol conversion) smaller than Dr. Boz Glucose Keto ratio. (His 1.0 would be her 18 or approximately 20)
Both of these would be different numbers of either of the 2 measurements were using different units.
Seyfried’s paper comes with a spreadsheet link for calculating his GKI, and giving all the conversions.

Being math oriented it is confusing me so my guess is that it will confuse others – or they will get it correct by accident or wrong by reading meters differently.

My current levels from #CarnivoreDiet onto a 70 hour fast were:
Glucose 103 mg/dL
Ketones 0.9 mmol/L
= Seyfried GKI of 6.41
= Dr. Boz ratio of 114

(Which seems quite a bit higher than I expected though I may be well adapted to ketones at this point rather than having trouble making them
Also, even were my Glucose to drop to 80, it would still miss as a longshot autophagy indicator.

On a side note:
At 70+ hours of a water fast, I’m dropping weight by the kilo, about 3 lbs per day, and this is following losing 50+ lbs and being on Carnivore or Keto diet for many months (8+)

My Ketostick is going moderate to large almost immediately even though the (new) meter shows only 0.9 mmol.
(nominal 40 second developing time on the ketostick)

I have been using the sticks for decades to gauge ketosis so having such seemingly poor correlation is confusing.

[Herb_Martin]

Karim,

Where did the table originate?
It doesn’t look to be a simple conversion from GKI to Dr.Boz and I didn’t find it (yet) in the original reference on GKI from Seyfried.
Going to follow the other references in case it is one of those.

Thank you, and thank you for posting all of the above info and personal logs.

[KetoCancerMom]

Here are what my numbers are looking like:

The BG (glucose) and BK (ketones) numbers are taken before I eat.
So the numbers for March 1 are the macros I ate and the readings from the next night, at supper on the 2nd (so it reflects the meal on the 1st).

The color codes are my own, based on protein targets (based on weight).
For GKI: green (not shown, is 1 or less), light yellow (between 1 and 2) and dark orange (between 2 and 3), and red (above 3).

[Karim_Wassef]

Martin,

Which table do you mean? I just use the GKI formula and plot it myself. Here’s the reference posted previously by someone else for ease:

Glucose Ketone index (GKI)

[Karim_Wassef]

Here’s my GKI for the week so far:

Check out my fasting thread for more details:

Karim's Extended Fast Tracker - come along for the ride

Thanks! Here are the updated views. I decided to go semi-log on one scale to better capture low GKI variation. [1] [2] [3] Really shows how much you can gain even on Keto. But I consider that healthy gains! Not sure if the second plot is the best way to display fat change vs. GKI over time, but it’s one way. [4]

It tooks me 3.5 days of continuous fasting just to break into moderate autophagy (GKI<3) and around 4.5 days to get around or under GKI < 1 consistently.

[OldDoug]

Question for everybody - if you know, or think you know, or if you’ve read something or if you just want to run outside and shoot guns in the air.

The level of blood ketones during fasting - what all controls this? The liver is making ketones from fat, powering most of the body this way. Yet people vary substantially in their blood level, no? I don’t know if it’s generally true, but have heard stories of the ketone level going down over time, apparently as the body gets used to the process and doesn’t produce as much excess.

[Karim_Wassef]

that is true.

the body bets heavy when it doesn’t know what’s coming.

once it figures out what the pattern is likely to be, it pulls back and tries to be as conservative as possible.

[KetoCancerMom]

So, even doing OMAD, if not trying to lose weight, you still need to “mix things up”?

[daddyoh]

Question for everybody - if you know, or think you know, or if you’ve read something or if you just want to run outside and shoot guns in the air.

Good questions. Don’t know. I’ve only got a few sets of measurements.
Longer fasts tend to produce higher ketones. Ketones however are lower in the morning regardless because I still suffer dawn effect.

My BG is just coming down (reversing insulin resistance?) so I expect that to improve my GKI ration.

I do assume that going into a fast with minimal carbs consumed the day before that would be a positive affect on ketones. But I normally am <20g/day.

I’ll be interested in other people’s answers.

I’m fasting now (24+ hrs) and will measure just before I break the fast. Hope to go to dinner time but only time will tell if I go longer or break sooner.

[Karim_Wassef]

If you want you body to use more energy than it wants to (conservatively), then you need to mix it up - if you don’t confuse it, then it will figure out the pattern and optimize.

This effect is very long duration. If I eat during the week and fast on the weekend, it figures that out. If I eat 4 days and fast 3, it figures that too. If I OMAD - yup, it’s got me. If I lift at the same time every other day - yup, got that covered too… Imagine a mini-you sitting on your shoulder literally keeping track of everything you do and trying to figure out what you’ll do next… and then reducing your energy expenditure when you do it…

[OldDoug]

Longer fasts tend to produce higher ketones. Ketones however are lower in the morning regardless because I still suffer dawn effect.

My BG is just coming down (reversing insulin resistance?) so I expect that to improve my GKI ratio.

Eric - yes, it makes total sense that longer fasts would bring higher ketone levels. Not sure exactly how long the body would still be running on glycogen from past eating - a day or two? Obviously, extremely low-carb keto eating should mean not much glycogen stored, beyond what the body really thinks is essential - that it will ‘fund’ via the liver making glucose out of fat. Still, after a while I see the “carb stores” being at minimum and the easiest stuff to recycle via autophagy being consumed (if any of that goes to energy) - and at that point the body has to totally concentrate of fat-burning and ketone-making.

I’ve never tested myself for ketones, and don’t have any scientific surveys at hand, but seems to me that one person’s 5 or 6 or 7 is another’s 2.5 or 3. If we are plugging such variable numbers into an “autophagy index,” then I’m wondering how accurate it will be.

Same for glucose - Karim hit a 39, I was at 90 last time after 5 days fasting, and a buddy of mine (severe blood sugar control issues) was still over 200 after 3 days fasting. I don’t see this as totally confounding - higher blood sugar should mean higher insulin should mean lower autophagy. Yet perhaps one should ‘calibrate’ one’s numbers before assuming the level of autophagy?

[Karim_Wassef]

actually I hit 36 and my ketones were only 3.8 at the time… I think that my body actively took that cue to push ketones up into the high 5s after that.

[daddyoh]

Yet perhaps one should ‘calibrate’ one’s numbers before assuming the level of autophagy?

Doug

I think there just is not enough autophagy knowledge available or know yet. I read Megan and Brenda talk about Dr Fung and his fasting patients never needing skin removal. So from this I take that autophagy is real. I’m just assuming that 36 to 54 hrs is enough for now for autophagy.

Already I’m taking away from this discussion the need to mix things up.

[Coffeebarbabe]

Can you share the details of your hacked FMD? How are you doing?