Erythritol (sugar substitutes) and lowered Keto levels

#1

I heard one ofmy gurus that is obsessive with keeping track of things say his Ketone levels were never as low as when he was using a sugar substitute., I think it was erythritol, but not positive.
Has anyone else noticed similar effects?

(Tracy) #2

I’m curious to see what everyone else has to say about this. I just posted about my inability to give up sweet tasting foods, so I don’t plan to, especially since my weight is at my goal and never goes up. Here’s what I don’t understand - erythritol, stevia, monk fruit, etc. is not sugar and it’s not artificial. It just happens to resemble something we all abused in our past. If I make a pizza that has 3 carbs per serving, my body isn’t going to respond and gain weight because I’m eating artificial pizza.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

I think the issue is that different folks respond to different substances differently. So it simply boils down to what’s OK for you may or may not be OK for someone else and the only way to make the determination is by trial and error. For a simple example, take dairy. Lots of us can eat all we want and it’s healthy and nutritious. Others can’t and it’s not.

#4

Nope, never seen that. I’d add that if he was in fact a keto “guru” he’d know that your ketone level is near meaningless in the scheme of things unless you’re intentionally keeping them high for a medical reason. High ketone levels don’t equal faster fat loss, so why concern yourself?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #5

Many people on these forums have reported that one or another of the many non-sugar sweeteners appears to spike their insulin (inferred from the pattern of their glucose readings after ingesting) or to otherwise impede their progress. But it’s always a different sweetener, and one sweetener that A had trouble with is just fine for B, and vice versa. So I wouldn’t be particularly concerned, just keep an eye out for a potential problem, and switch to a different sweetener, if necessary.

As @amwassil points out, different folks respond to different substances differently. And as @lfod14 notes, there is no particular benefit to higher ketone levels. As Dr. Stephen Phinney and Prof. Jeff Volek, who defined nutritional ketosis as a serum β-hydroxybutyrate level of 0.5 mmol/L or above, the definition is actually somewhat arbitrary. Dr. Phinney said at Ketofest last year that while 1.0 might be a bit better than 0.5, levels above 1.0 don’t appear to confer any additional benefit. And as they both regularly study keto-adapted athletes whose serum β-hydroxybutyrate is usually around 0.2 or so, I would guess that it’s possible to have the benefits of being in ketosis at any level.

And as I finally realised, the blood ketone level is really just a measure of the gap between production and consumption, not a measure of what’s really going on at the cellular level. Also, there are three ketone bodies circulating in our blood, and we only measure one of them—so we already know we’re relying on incomplete data to begin with.

(Jack Bennett) #6

That’s a good point. I wonder if there’s a simple means of measuring the rate of ketone consumption/metabolism.

The imperfect analogy that comes to mind is a fuel tank - you can drive 20 mph or 100 mph at a given moment whether your tank is 100% full or 25% full. The amount of fuel in your tank at a given moment doesn’t tell you anything about how how hard your engine is running at that moment.

Similarly, your body could be producing and consuming ketones slowly or rapidly at a blood level of 0.2 mmol/L or 1.5 mmol/L. As long as the rate of production and consumption are balanced, the ketone concentration stays stable. (it’s just chemistry!)