Hello! I am a newbie to the Keto diet/lifestyle. I am having good results and am very committed. I was wondering what is the prevailing opinion on using exogenous supplements like Pruvit or another OTC brand in addition to the lifestyle/diet? My research shows its a very divided and contested topic and I’d like some good feedback. Thank you!!!
Exogenous Supplements
Shortstuff
(Allie)
#2
Save your money. They do nothing that a well put together keto diet doesn’t do (except empty your bank account).
birddog27
(Jennifer)
#3
The only situation it might make sense is for an endurance athlete who needs instant energy. But for losing weight it doesn’t make sense to eat ketones when you can make your own way, way cheaper.
hrpeckens
(Heidi R Peckens)
#4
From the research i’ve been doing it sounds like the ones we produce
naturally are “Endogenous” and the ones in supplements are “Exogenous”. Are
these outside ones “fake” just trying to sort through all the hype!
richard
(Richard Morris)
#5
Is this the grandma's underwear post?
My liver makes over $300,000 worth of ketones a year just by me not eating sugar or starch. It’s all the right shaped isomer so I don’t worry about developing metabolic disease after decades of giving my mitochondria a caloric amount of left handed ketones that we didn’t evolve to use. Also i am making ketones from fat. But most importantly my liver makes ketones when glucose and insulin are both is low - that’s the correct context to have ketones circulating.
The problem with eating ketones is they are quite expensive, 50% of exogenous ketones are L shaped molecules - not the D shaped ones our bodies evolved to use, eating energy replaces consumption of body fat which will not help you lose weight.
IMO exogenous ketones are sold based on the benefits of the endogenous ketones and circulating ketones in the wrong context (when insulin and glucose are high) probably won’t have most of the benefits of circulating ketones in the right context.
hrpeckens
(Heidi R Peckens)
#6
Thank you for the feedback, it is really appreciated. Do you hold the same opinion of other OTC supplements such as L-Carnitine?
richard
(Richard Morris)
#7
No, I don’t have a problem with L-Carnitine. I think it’s mostly harmless. We use carnitine to shuttle long chained fats across the mitochondrial membrane, but we’re not really rate limited from an inadequacy of carnitine, we can easily make it from the protein lysine.
But that’s a great example of a stereo-isomer. The L- form is the one we use and make out of proteins. It’s mirror image, the D- form is acutely toxic to humans.
In sugars (and ketones) we generally make and use the D- form and the L- form is unnatural to us and in proteins it’s usually the other way around.
It’s kind of like those “L” shapes in tetris, if its the right shape you are golden
But if you get the mirror image you are stuffed.
In the case of ketones the wrong shape isn’t acutely toxic like the wrong shaped carnitine … but that is in mice given 3 mg of tagged L-BOHB. No-one really knows what happens in a human given caloric doses for decades.
