Keto Academy and Exogenous Ketones

(Shelley) #21

Hi Richard.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write your response. I really admire your work and your knowledge on the Ketogenic lifestyle and how you relay that to everyone. I was listening to Dr Jacob Wilson talking about the Tetris analogy the other day. What I do know is that there are people that are people having incredible results and have been sharing this back to researchers and that it is driving research forward. Which I think is a great thing. There are a great many people that have had significant changes in their health because of exogenous ketones. I think of it as a starting block. It’s a way to get you on the right foot and get you going. I never would have known about the Ketogenic diet or what it was all about unless I had heard of exogenous ketones. For me, it has helped me immensely and now I have changed my life. I follow a keto/low carb woe and I do intermittent fasts and longer fast - I try and participate in the Monthly fast each month!
I love this community and I love how we all share and support each other. It’s nice to come to a place where you are not feeling like an outsider because of the way you eat. My doc gave me the eye roll when I told him what I was doing but raised his eyebrows when he read my blood work results for my annual check up! :grin:

(Shelley) #22

Hi there. I don’t mind your pushback. Sorry, sometimes I don’t explain myself well. When I was talking about children I was thinking of stories from parents and medical practitioners who shared with me how it had helped their kids with ADD/ADHD and autism spectrum. Sometimes a restricted diet is difficult for children or young adults to maintain because of food sensitivities or taste or textures. They found it was very helpful for them with a drink and the benefits they saw in their children was pretty amazing. They were speaking from their experiences and I thought it was incredible because I understand how hard it can be to feed a picky eater - I can’t imagine what it might be like for someone with sensitivities. Some families are also vegan, vegetarian or have other reasons they can’t do a keto diet.
Again, I have heard from people who have said it helped them immensely.

(Richard Morris) #23

I suspect some of that apparent effect may be caused by a drop in appetite because of a sudden over supply of energy in circulation. You would notice that. You might also notice that you feel mentally clear when you have ketones fueling your brain. Ketones do feel great.

You wouldn’t burn fat, tho. You wouldn’t need to burn any as you now have an abundance of energy. Your insulin might rise just to lock energy into adipose tissue. And if you had too much energy in circulation you might actually turn some of those ketones into new palmitic fatty acids (de novo lipogenesis) that insulin would help you store in body fat.

If you were trying to not eat carbs then the other thing you wouldn’t notice is that you would still be needing to make glucose but now you don’t have the glycerol from the triglycerides (which you aren’t burning) as a substrate, so you would need to draw down even more lean mass to fuel that.

So over time you’d be using less body fat, using more lean mass - your body composition could be going in the wrong direction.

You might feel much the same if you have 3 mmol/l of ketones from making them, and 6 mmol/l of racemic (left and right handed) ketones from eating them.

You have roughly 5 litres of blood, so you’d have (3x5=)15 mmol of D-BOHB and 15 mmol of L-BOHB.

Eventually your body uses the 15 mmol of D-BOHB, you lose the great feeling and you test and now you are out of ketosis. NOTE: Ketone testing strips only register D-BOHB ( they use the same enzyme that only works with the D- form of the stereoisomer).

So now you take another hit, you now have another 15 mmol of D-BOHB again and feel awesome. But here’s the thing. Noone knows how much L-BOHB you have in circulation. Do you now have 15 mmol, or do you have 30 mmol? You can’t test it, you can’t feel it, you can’t use it.

Does the body clear it? What does it make it into? Does it clear it at the same rate as it clears D-BOHB. As far as I can tell no-one knows the answer to that, and no one who sells them (or holds patents in processes to make them) wants to know the answer to that question.

#24

Ok, fair enough. That’s a much different statement than what I originally interpreted (i.e., all children). I don’t know enough about the science of exogenous ketones in the context of ADD/ADHD/Autism, so I can’t comment further, other than to state, as a father, the science of exogenous ketones is too new for me (and for my children). In my view, we, as parents, don’t have the moral license or luxury of looking back and saying “oops.”

(Rob) #25

So, to sum up, the effects are probably superficial at best, and maybe a degree of placebo effect. With unknown impacts from the unwitting by-products within the ketones, this sounds like another in a long line of taking advantage of emerging science to sell snake oil at high profit margins. Or am I just cynical?

(Shelley) #26

Hi Rob.

What my experience has been has not been superficial. I understand that you may not want to use exogenous ketones but I have had significant changes with my health and I know many others that have as well. There are countless stories of people who have benefited from them. You may not want to try them, or believe in them or maybe you want to wait for more research - ironically I also get this response from people who don’t believe in a Ketogenic diet. But I know what has worked for me. I think we are all in on a movement that is huge. We are all changing people’s concepts with what the American diet should be. I think it’s amazing.

(Shelley) #27

This a response to capt bob. Not Rob.

(jilliangordona) #28

I don’t have any fancy data to back it up, but I use exogenous ketones before my heavy leg days at the gym, and when I am having a long day at work. Dom D’Agistino discusses in his recent podcast with Joe Rogan that he feels better when his ketone levels are higher, and he can only get there by supplementing.

I have not seen an issue with my weight loss, and I feel awesome using them. If used as a “quick fix” for weight loss or to try and cancel out eating carbs, then yes, they are a giant waste of money.

However, if used thoughtfully alongside a ketogenic diet, I really have found them to be an awesome tool

(Bunny) #29

I wonder if the exogenic ketones can damage the metabolism over a period of time? e.g. just because you see indications of ketones in blood, urine or breath from this external source; are you observing a non-functioning (symbiosis) suspension of exogenic ketones floating around in the body chemistry and assume we are in endogenic/organic (other than a non-fat burning benefit) Ketosis?

What is that actually doing to our over all metabolic fitness and processes or making the body dependent on an external source to the point when we decide to stop the external supply we open a Pandora’s box on our body?

This sounds more like a Rabbit Hole money making scheme than organic science!

A little disturbed by this!

(Rob) #30

I’m happy for your n=1 be it real or placebo effect but you have a self confessed promotional agenda which makes it harder to believe the pitch in the absence of real science (not just longitudinal studies) or more than anecdotal evidence.

A doctor friend told me recently that I sounded like an anti-vaxxer when I was explaining the appalling lack of science and wrong-headed guidance in most mainstream nutritional advice. I said that I could hear that in myself but the key difference is that Keto and the overturning of most nutrition conventional wisdom has full scientific and broad experiential backup. You must admit that most fads and scams sound exactly like that (take a grain of truth and then add something unproven to make money from suckers) but this makes Keto the exception, not the model to offer false credibility to anything else.

Just my 2c.

(Shelley) #31

Hi Capbob.

I said I promote it because I wanted to be transparent and truefull and it was from a comment from my original post - which I had not yet become a promotor but basically wanted to say I do know because I believe in it. I have a lot of respect for this community and am really one of you. I may not be as strict in the guidlelines that you follow, but I do what works for me, and it seems I’m not alone on here. My doctors results are no placebo effect, nor are they for many many people I know.
I did not actively promote here. I was cautioned by Daisy as my post sounded like a pitch and that was not my intent. I don’t even have anything on my bio to promote any product or affiliation, I have never PMd anyone to tell them about the product to solicit them. I wouldn’t do that. it’s just my story and journey. I believe that there are many ways to live a keto lifestyle and I believe we all have the right to our opinions.

(Rob) #32

Disagreement is not the same as suppressing your speech (#1 damn rule of the Internet). You made your point, some people agree, some disagree. Feel free to keep on with your POV here (not that you need my permission).

I’m sure you were just being transparent (after admin intervention), but all good sales pitches also have a solid bit of ‘open and honest’ to kick them off - just Sales 101. How is anyone able to tell the difference?

(Shelley) #33

You’re right. I’m sure you have heard lots of sales pitches and of course you don’t know me so you don’t know my intentions or my heart - but I do work for a non profit. I have for over 15 years. It’s my passion and my heart. I work with premed students and teach them about relationship centered care. I also tell them about the Ketogenic diet as I believe they need to know before they go the med school. I promote because I believe in the product but that is because of my experience.
Anyway. Happy holidays. Love peace and happiness everyone.

(VLC.MD) #34

Big exception is that low carb Keto has science and logic behind it. Anti-vaxx works on fear and misinformation.

(Linda Culbreth) #35

Good input - one question, don’t we make 3 types of ketones, the 2 you mentioned + acetone?

(Richard Morris) #36

We make the ketone Acetoacetate from fat and we burn it for energy to make ATP. This is what we detect with pee strips.

The problem is when Acetoacetate is just hanging out getting ready to be burned, it can spontaneously degrade into acetone and that we can’t burn for energy to make ATP. Acetone is volatile and usually outgassed from the surface of our lungs, it’s what gives us ketone breath and what we measure with a ketonix.

One of the ways we stop losing all our precious ketone energy as keto breath, is we can enzymaticly convert the ketone acetoacetate into betahydroxybutyrate and back into acetoacetate when we want to use it to make ATP. betahydroxybutyrate is what we detect with the blood test. It’s also not officially a ketone … but we call it a ketone because that’s how we use it.

I guess you can think of betahydroxybutyrate as being a shelf stable form of acetoacetate, and acetone as being spoiled acetoacetate.

(Linda Culbreth) #37

As usual, Richard, you gave a good explanation. Thank you.

(Todd Allen) #38

A typical dose is 22 grams. But the product isn’t pure BOHB, typically it is a salt plus other ingredients such as flavorings and because they are salts the dose can’t be a lot higher or one will be getting an awful lot of sodium and/or other electrolytes. So roughly 12 grams BOHB or 6 grams of D-BOHB in a dose. This isn’t very much, a small fraction of what one typically produces in a day when fasting. Because of the dosing I doubt it has much more impact on body fat or fat storage than putting a tablespoon of cream in ones coffee. Likewise I don’t see it doing a lot more for ones energy either - at least for those who are fat adapted.

(Linda Culbreth) #39

Got another question, Richard. If you are registering the acetones (only thing I can afford to do & the pee sticks pretty much no longer work for me) does that mean you probably are in ketosis?

Thanks.

(Richard Morris) #40

good point. I was thinking of this in context of someone who eats ketones to get into ketosis without carb restricting … so they’d have glucose + ketones in circulation.

Interesting 22g. I think I can calculate roughly how much that will affect serum levels.

Let’s see (back of the envelope calculations) BOHB is roughly 100 g/mole, a mole of Na is roughly 28g … so let’s assume BOHB is 75% by weight of the ketone salt, and D-BOHB is 50% of that.

22g of ketone salts then is 11g of the D-isoform, and 75% of that is 8.25g of the ketone part of the molecule. Which is roughly 82.5 mmol, spread into 5 litres of blood, that would be 16.5 mmol/l. You would definitely notice that.

According to George Cahill we make 57g a day in our livers when we don’t eat carbs. That’s about … 57 g / 8.25 g/packet = 6.9 packets of exogenous ketones worth, every day. What’s a dose cost? Around $35? So that would be $241 worth of ketones my liver makes every day. Or around $88,324 worth in a year.

Such a cunning liver
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