Test Breath Ketones without a Ketonix (using a cheap breathalyzer)

[Nancy_Wolfrum]

Measuring breath acetone for monitoring fat loss: Review

Does that help??

[iewauh_edoc]

I don’t know what all the fussing is about … I bought the AT6000 and it works like a charm. In fact I am confused by all this blowing and counting you are all talking about 6 seconds, 10 seconds etc … My device read immediately … I’m not keto adapted or anything, I just got it to track my fast so I know if I am in the danger zone … done two days of mild keto (first time for me eating keto) reading 0.00 third day began fast reading went from 0.02 to 0.03 second day fasted reading went from 0.04 to 0.05 and 0.06 back to 0.05 over the course of the day … today when I woke up it was 0.10 but after doing so activity, it came back down to 0.06 … so here get this, over the last few days I didn’t have to blow for any length of time, my at6000 takes a reading in 1 second or under … I think you are all breathing wrong? I alter my breath so that I have just breath’d out normally as the blow now signal appears or beeps and then I just breath into it with hardly any pressure at all ,very lightly, like when you are fogging up a window or mirror with the heat of your breath and it take a proper reading in less than a second, that’s it , there is no 10 second blow required … I just though I would let you all know my experience with this … I really enjoyed reading this thread, thanks

[DawnMichelle]

I bought the AT6000 and couldn’t get it to read anything. In the meantime I stuck to measuring blood ketones with my PrecisionXtra. Then I caved in and bought the Ketonix. I definitely like the fact that I’m not pricking my finger all the time. But I don’t trust the results as much. For those of you who use a Ketonix, what level do you consider to be indicative of a good level of ketosis? From the way it is set up, it seems that 4ppm is the goal. That seems low to me. 10 seems more reasonable. I’ve sort of come up with my own rule: If the dial starts moving while I am still blowing, then that is good. If not, I’m likely not in ketosis. I would love to hear how others are interpreting their Ketonix readings.

[iewauh_edoc]

Ok I noticed as I finished my fast and for several days after, the time it took to read and register a result took longer and longer requiring a longer blow before beeping … So it does seem to read properly when saturated with ketones but for people who are fat adapted or keto adapted they might have much lower levels due to utilization of their ketones and thus reading requires longer blows or may provided lower BAC results much the same as the keto strip urine problem after months of adaptation …

[Piwacket]

I got a cheap one too, it says it measures in mg/l which as I understand is equivalent to ppm. My readings are .2 - .25 problem is I can’t find a chart that tells me for sure where I am. Too many conflicting charts and converting is a problem. Can you tell me, pete, in mg/l what the ranges are??? I don’t know why I can’t determine this definitively on the internet. IT’s driving me crazy.

TIA
Pi

[amwassil]

I got a cheap one too, it says it measures in mg/l which as I understand is equivalent to ppm.

To ANY and ALL who are using a “Cheap Breathalyzer” please be advised these devices DO NOT give you any relevant information about anything. Period. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Do not fool yourself thinking otherwise. Stop posting meaningless numbers and asking for advice about them. Please! You’re just giving blood donors more justification to denigrate breathalyzer sampling.

And don’t think my results reported below were due to my specific cheap device and that your cheap device is different. It’s not. It’s a cheap alcohol breathalyzer that by a fluke of sensor design does not distinguish acetone from ethanol. It might measure ethanol accurately, or not. If you want to measure BrAce accurately, get a Ketonix. Or, there is another product due out “real soon now” called Keyto.

Please stop already. This dead horse has been beaten to a pulp. Have fun if you want to, but don’t post meaningless numbers. Thank you in advance.

Calibrating my cheap breathalyzer against my Ketonix - not

My intention was to use my Ketonix to calibrate the readings obtained on my cheap breathalyzer. This one: [breathalyzer] But I’m giving up on this project after two weeks simply because the device is pretty much useless. When I originally purchased this breathalyzer I presumed it was inaccurate and probably not very reliable. But I thought at least if it was internally consistent it could be used to establish trends. Even this turns out to be wrong. The thing is not even consistent with itself…

[Janie]

That’s a pretty strong post to someone’s first post. It’s not like they have been here long enough to read any history - they just asked a simple question. Sheesh.

[Janie]

Hi Piwacket and welcome to the forum!

I played around with my cheap breathylizer when I got it and it was fun. The numbers don’t mean anything or correlate to blood ketones but I used it a lot on multi-day fasts and the numbers would steadily rise the longer I was fasted so it trended with my higher ketones.

I also would blow “0” when I knew I had too many carbs so can be a quick check for that also. I found if I held my breath before I exhaled that it would read a bit higher. I guess you are concentrating the acetone in your lungs.

I finally broke down and bought a Keto Mojo and test when I am fasting more than 36 hours so don’t use my breathylizer any more.

But if you are getting something more than zero and haven’t had a cocktail LOL then you are doing just fine.

[amwassil]

@Janie It’s a simple answer to the simple question, directly and politely stated. And it wasn’t aimed solely at the quoted poster. I simply used his post as the launch pad. These are useless devices. End. I also requested that people who want to continue using these devices for fun, and I did so for a couple of months myself, please stop asking advice interpreting meaningless numbers. There are a lot of people, some on this forum, who think sampling and interpreting BrAce is a useless and meaningless exercise. Obsessing about these useless devices and the meaningless numbers they display only gives those doubters ammunition.

The devices not only register ethanol and acetone, but also isopropynol (isopropyl alcohol), which is another metabolic breakdown product, not only of fat metabolism. So even if you get a non-zero reading from the device it does not necessarily mean anything about acetone. And as I noted in my attempt to calibrate mine, any apparent trend could just as well represent the opposite trend due to the overlap of values within each range of potential values for any given readout.

PS: If anyone else wants to attempt the calibration and manages to come up with useful numbers, let’s see it!

[Ralph_Morgan]

I just ordered a cheap breathalyzer to see if it registers anything (ie. measures acetone and not just alcohol) – as it is a cheap one ($12) it will probably react to acetone. I’ll use it to compare to my keto strips measurements in the morning, and to try to track fluctuations during the day.

BTW. I’m not surprised that people are finding almost no correlation between breathalyzer (breath acetone) and blood test results. The blood tests are based on a drop of blood, so should be measuring the actual blood concentration. The breath tests are measuring the concentration of acetone in the exhaled air – which not only depends on the rate of acetone being released from the blood stream into your lungs, but the flow rate of air into and out of the lungs. For example, if you take a deep, rapid breath there should be a lower acetone concentration in the exhaled airflow that if you hold your breath for a while and then exhale it slowly.

For that reason the exhaled acetone readings will always vary from sample to sample unless you don’t exactly the same procedure each time. And the correlation of exhaled acetone to blood ketones will depend not only on the correlation between waste acetone being exhaled and the concentration of ketones in the blood, but also in exactly how you are doing the exhalation process (eg. how deep the breath in, how long you hold the breath before exhaling, how fast you exhale etc.).

Personally I won’t bother trying to calibrate the breathalyzer readings to my keto stix values (and I won’t be bothering to do any blood tests), as I only want to see if the breathalyzer shows any detection of acetone If it does, then, as long as I do exactly the same technique each time, the readings I get at different times and on different days should be indicative of how my breath acetone concentration is varying. So I might be able to see the normal diurnal variation pattern, and how it varies after exercise sessions, meals etc.

I’m only doing keto (low carb) dieting with quite high protein in order to try to continue to loose excess weight while preserving as much lean mass as possible, so for me the exact ketone readings don’t matter all that much.

[iewauh_edoc]

This is anecdotal but multiplying by 40 is an approximate guide to mmol level … I will test next time I fast as I now bought a ketone meter.

[Acetix]

Guys, there is no correlation between Breath Acetone levels and blood levels of BetaHydroxybutyrate. Period.

Breath Acetone generally indicates recent metabolism of Ketones, BetaHydroxybutyrate levels indicates the amount of Ketones circulating in the bloodstream.

Most Keto adherents have levels of BHB below 0.5 mmol unless they are fasting, exercising or imbibing MCT oils.

In my opinion Breath Acetone measurement is a better indicator of Ketosis. Most people don’t agree but they have been misled.

[Janie]

Most Keto adherents have levels of BHB below 0.5 mmol unless they are fasting, exercising or imbibing MCT oils.

What do you base this statement on?

It certainly does not apply to me (2 years out on keto). My BHB will definitely climb when fasting but it is always higher than 0.5 eating a normal keto diet with no MCT oil and no exercise other than walking.

[ThisTime]

Thanks for this thread. I’m now the proud owner of an AT6000 and thanks to the tips on here of how to breath it’s actually giving me readings. I’ve seen people say that you can scroll through different views of the result to see e.g. 0.023 instead of 0.02 but I can’t figure out how to do it. Can anyone enlighten me?

[ThisTime]

Looking through all the listings for the AT6000 it seems like there are two different types and if you want the third digit you need to get one that specifically says it does mg/L as some of them only do BAC%. Ah well.

[amwassil]

Don’t bother. You are not getting useful BrAce measurements.

[Annja]

This is simply not true. When in ketosis (as shown by BHB measurement), my cheap breathalyser shows high values too. And vice versa. This can really help people who do not have a BHB blood ketone meter wanting to know if they are in ketosis.

[amwassil]

@ThisTime @Annja

Calibrating my cheap breathalyzer against my Ketonix - not

My intention was to use my Ketonix to calibrate the readings obtained on my cheap breathalyzer. This one: [breathalyzer] But I’m giving up on this project after two weeks simply because the device is pretty much useless. When I originally purchased this breathalyzer I presumed it was inaccurate and probably not very reliable. But I thought at least if it was internally consistent it could be used to establish trends. Even this turns out to be wrong. The thing is not even consistent with itself…

[Nascenta]

I’ve been in ketosis on and off for 3 years for weight loss. In that time I’ve played with pee strips, the at6000, and blood ketones and blood glucose. This last go around, my at6000 (which had been in my drawer for 6 months) didn’t register anything even though my blood ketones were at 2.5! Yet it did register something after using toothpaste which it had always done. I found this article which describes things that are wrong with the cheap breathalizers, that is, breathalizers that use semiconductor technology. It suggests among other things that they can get old, the sensor dries out and loses calibration. To test this theory bought another new at6000 through Amazon. This new one is more sensitive than the old one. When the old one shows 0.0, the new displays .02! So age does affect sensitivity.
I have found breath, blood and pee ketones come from different body systems and will correlate only randomly. For example, I’ve had my blood show 2.0 mm/l and gotten no breath reading yet at .4 mm/l blood ketones I’ve blown .02! Kind of like in a car the fuel tank level doesn’t correlate to what is going through the injectors nor with what is going out in the exhaust. Even though it is all gas related.

Semiconductor Testers-Warning!

[amwassil]

@Nascenta If you want to measure BrAce the only devices worth the effort are Ketonix and Levl. Everything else is just an ethanol detector that also happens to detect acetone, maybe. They might actually detect isopropanol rather than acetone.