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

ketonix
acetone
breath
(German Ketonian) #649

No, the point of the Bikman quote was to show that binary measures are sufficient and suitable for most people. But, oh well…

(German Ketonian) #650

Don’t get me wrong: Do whatever you like. I just think there are too many confounding factors to treat “ketosis” as a continuous variable.

(Michael) #651

And the rest of your argument falls away…

BTW I have no vested interest in selling Ketonix devices which you seem to be implying. My basic position is to use a cheap breathalyser to see if you are in Ketosis but if you want a more informative device, the Ketonix works. A lot of people on this forum seem to be bumped into buying a blood ketone measuring device without understanding the ongoing cost.which can surpass that of a Ketonix within one month of use.

That’s more like it. You are now clearly giving your personal opinion.
Surely the integral nature of ongoing ketosis is that more ketosis is better than some.

My basic message is measure breath not blood if you want to measure at all.

(German Ketonian) #652

…which is also questionable but you know best, so go ahead.

…which ist fundamentally unproven. There is no substance to support that more ketosis is better than less.

(Stacy Blanchard) #653

I would think the police have much higher quality equipment.

(Stacy Blanchard) #654

Unless someone (like me) throws in epilepsy and then there is a great reason to measure and to know. Being in ketosis, then, takes on another level with a different goal.

(German Ketonian) #655

Isn’t that what I said? See my comment on therapeutic levels of ketosis…

(Michael) #656

More obfuscation but still no facts.

Please do not patronise by telling me that I presume to know more than others; I don’t.

There is a complete field of mathematics dedicated to the analysis of this sort of data. It is Calculus.

(German Ketonian) #657

I just would like to see the science on your claims. Please don’t patronize me by telling me you didn’t say these things.

(German Ketonian) #658

That is true. Yet you need good controlled data for that. And I contend that breath acetone provides is (as are blood ketone or breathalizer measurements) in general too volatile and multifactorial to boil down to behavior you can control in you own home. My intention was to hint at the fact that people (including me in the beginning) were driving themselves nuts by chasing numbers they to a good degree have no control over. Thus, for most knowing that you are in ketosis is enough (again therapeutic purposes precluded - but then you should be medically supervised anyway). Some people don’t have high ketone numbers no matter what they do, be it breath or blood. I tend to have very high numbers but there is little reason as to whether they go up or down a bit, and I measure all three ketone bodies, track my sleep, diet, heart rate, exercise and so on.

(Michael) #659

Yes, I did say those things. Apologies if you feel patronised by my point of view. iI is only my considered opinion.

Measurement is not control, it is feedback. There is no better feedback than the level of Breath Acetone at the time of measurement. One can then act on this and take steps if desired to increase activity to iimprove one’s level of ketosis or just perhaps meditate or sleep if that makes one happy or just do nothing. Blood Ketone measurement will only tell you that you have unused ketones in the blood, nothing more.

Precisely. To me measuring blood ketones is like using urine strips but less useful (and much more expensive):

Urine strips will indicate that one is successfully eating a ketogenic diet at the start of the process when one’s liver is not accustomed to being in ketosis so the ketones have to be dumped via the kidneys. When one starts to get fat adapted the liver has now attuned itself to using the quantities of ketones available and where better to get these ketones from than fat storage in addition to those in the diet; the urine strips cease to be of any further use at this stage.

In reality, blood ketone measurement indicates that one has ketones in the blood and not much else.

However, measuring breath acetone confirms that one is currently primarily in ketosis. If one has a device that indicates the quantity of acetone in the breath then they know that they are in ketosis and at what level: basal, nutritional ketosis, high nutritional ketosis or very high ketosis.

I think the message needs to be simple and i repeat my takeaway from this forum is:

Measure breath not blood if you want to measure at all. (It is as simple as that.)

This is a long thread but I get the feeling that a lot of people using the cheaper breathalysers have blown their budget on blood meters before they have come to the realisation that breath measurement is the best way to go and cheaper to boot.

(German Ketonian) #660

this depends, I think. Lower blood ketones after a while can be indicative of fat adaptation (your muscles using FFA directly). Thus, blood ketones can measure fat adaptation to some degree.

I agree. But also your usage of acetone is compromised by your activity, just as a blood ketones. So, turned around, you can say that breath acetone only measures your current usage “density” of ketones, nothing more. And blood ketones monitor the “storage” of ketones currently in your blood, nothing more.

I agree that blood ketone measurements are expensive and mostly not needed. But they are still the most accurate measurement, IMHO. I love the fact that my cheap breathalizer is a genuine alternative measure. And as I have posted above, my results confirm that there is some correlation between breath and blood ketones. Therefore, I still think that the message:

is overstating it. Breath measures ketosis, blood measures ketosis and/or fat adaptation.

(Michael) #661

You continue to complicate the issue.

If we can use the analogy of an automobile:

A blood ketone measurement figure is in effect is the fuel gauge
and a calibrated breath meter - like the Ketonix or several other very expensive devices- is the speedometer.

The body is a sophisticated control system. Like as in the car, as the body gets more efficient (fat adapted) it is happy to run with less fuel in the tank (lower blood ketones) knowing that it can access a secondary fuel tank (body fat or diet) as need be. In fact, the body is like a hybrid car in that it can change back to burning gas/petrol (carbohydrate/glucose) at any time if it is introduced into the system but in the case of the body carbohydrate/glucose is a dirty fuel which also requires precious energy to store it. So the body stores some carbohydrate as glycogen and the rest as fat (it’s favourite fuel) for future use.

No, there is more to Breath Acetone and there is research to support this view:

Anderson-2015-Obesity.pdf (271.8 KB)

(German Ketonian) #662

“In healthy individuals, breath acetone is affected by multiple factors. Dietary macronutrient composition has the greatest impact followed, in rank order, by caloric restriction, exercise, pulmonary factors, and other factors.”

That’s my entire point: It depends on the goal. If your goal is fat loss, breath ketones aren’t necessarily indicative of that goal, because (like blood ketones) it’s most strongly associated with fat intake. That alone doesn’t tell you anything except that and how deep you are in ketosis. I can have my largest amount of ketone bodies after a keto cheat meal of thousands of calories. If I am fasted and using my stored fat, I get much lower readings. That’s why I think only therapeutic purposes of ketosis are unambiguous when it comes to judging whether deep ketosis is preferable to lower readings.

(Michael) #663

No, you are misinterpreting the papers findings.

The research paper clarifies as follows:

In non-diabetic subjects, the dietary composition appears to have the greatest
impact on BrAce (aka Breath Acetone-my edit inside brackets) relative to the other factors reviewed. This factor has the greatest impact because acetone is produced when fat is metabolized; increased fat metabolism causes increased acetone production.

(German Ketonian) #664

How am I misinterpreting? I as a non-diabetic have elevated ketones precisely when I am eating a lot of dietary fat, not necessarily when I burn a lot of body fat. This is what the paper says. Fat can be metabolized as either dietary or body fat. increased fat metabolism causes increased acetone production. But acetone production doesn’t hinge on the source of the fat. Hence my observation that for me, acetone levels rise during keto overfeeding, not starvation, fasting or fat loss.

(Michael) #665

In sporting parlance, you continue to move the goal posts. This thread is basically about detecting breath acetone in a cheap and cheerful manner as the easiest, cheapest and best way of confirming that one is in ketosis.

You insist insist on transposing your blood ketone measurements as being acetone measurements. Sure work away with your n=1 observations but please do not argue that they are relevant when in actual fact they are invalid.

I intend to start a new thread about the futility of blood ketone measurement for most of those following the Keto WOE and not continue with the hijacking of this thread.

(German Ketonian) #666

Yes, I am the one moving the goalpost…

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #667

Is this merely your opinion, or do you have evidence to support the idea that testing acetone in the breath is more accurate than testing beta-hydroxybutyrate in the blood? Phinney based the notion of “nutritional ketosis” on one’s serum level of BOHB, after all.

Furthermore, serum BOHB is, as we all know, only a marker for the the notion of fat-adaptation, since it is impossible to measure directly. Phinney says in his public lectures that any level of serum BOHB above 0.5 mmol/dL is a sign that the body is manufacturing ketones, which will presumably lead to fat-adaptation soon, if not immediately. He also admits that 0.5 is a fairly arbitrary threshold, especially since fat-adapted endurance athletes often show much lower levels while clearly still producing and using ketones.

0.0 ketones after 38 hours fasted?
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #668

Good points, Zimon. I would only suggest emending the first point to say that one’s breath acetone level only measures one’s excretion of acetone, not how much the body is producing and using. It is the same case as it is with the urine strips and acetoacetate.