Hey guys, it's Michael Kummer here. And today's video, I want to introduce
you to Biosense. My favorite way or device to measure ketones. Now, before we get started,
make sure you subscribe to this channel and you click on the little alert button so
you get notified when I publish more videos like this. I also wanna mention that I have
a fairly in-depth review of Biosense on my blog that I keep updating with
every new feature that Biosense releases, so make sure you check that out as well.
So, what is Biosense? Well, Biosense is a breath ketone meter, a breath ketone analyzer that can
help you understand if you are burning fat or glucose as a source of fuel. I've been using
Biosense for about two years to measure my ketones levels and to find out how exercise,
how certain food choices impact my body's ability to burn fat for energy or ketones,
more specifically. Now, one of the things that set Biosense apart from most of the other devices I've
used, including other breath ketone analyzers, including urine test strips, and including,
you know, the blood ketone testers that are very popular... is its accuracy. The company behind
Biosense, Readout Health, has a clinical background, meaning that they are heavily
involved in clinical trials and in scientific research, and in that environment, accuracy is
obviously very important, and one of the ways how Biosense is more accurate than
especially other breath ketone meters is by using a technology called deep lung sampling.
So in other words, when you blow into Biosense. The device discards most of your breath through
vents here on the side. But as you approach the end of your breath and Biosense uses a microphone,
it's built into the device here to figure out when you reach the end of your breath.
Only then will it direct your breath to the censor to measure how much acetone is in your
breath. Now, acetone is one of the ketone bodies that your body produces when you're burning fat
for energy. And it's slightly different to BHB, which is the, I guess, the mother of ketones,
as most people would argue, the one that you typically measure, you know, via urine
test strips or maybe a finger prick test. Acetone is slightly different and it occurs
in your breath when you're burning fat for energy. And that's what Biosense measures.
What I really like about the device is that it's very much non-invasive. So all you have
to do is turn it on, blow into it, wait a few seconds, and you get a measurement,
and you can do that as often as you like. I mean, typically you should wait five minutes
between each sample because it takes a while for the residual ketones to dissipate from the device
and the sensor. But, technically every five minutes you could take a measurement and it
doesn't cost you anything beyond the initial purchase price of the device, of course.
So let's take a measurement. Let's see how it works. So we turn it on and it takes a little bit
for the sensor to warm up, for the device to get ready for the first measurement. While you wait,
you can actually see a progress bar here as the sensor is warming up,
and you can see the last reading on it. You probably can't see it on a camera,
but I'm gonna show you a screenshot then of how it looks. And you just wait a few seconds and once
it's ready, it gives an indication on the screen. You push the button again to take your breath,
takes again maybe three, four seconds, and then it says blow. And that's what we're gonna do now.
And I see a success message that tells you, Okay, you did a good job. Sometimes,
especially with kids, we used it with our kids or we used it with our kids as well. If
you don't blow enough, then it might give you an indication that the reading was bad and you have
to repeat the sampling. But now it's done. It shows me I have five. I got a five ACEs
score in my breath, and that's just so you have a rough idea of how ACEs translate to
BHB or mmol/L. There is a roughly 1:10 relationship, meaning that my five ACEs
roughly correspond to 0.5 mmol per liter of BHB, so I am just into nutritional ketosis
with this, and that was it. And I can do it as, as often as you
like without having, you know, the inconvenience of sticking a needle into my finger. Or, you know,
wasting more, not wasting money, but spending money on those ketones test strips that you would
usually use to measure your blood ketones. Now in terms of battery life, Biosense, the battery,
and Biosense last between two and four days depending on how often you use the device.
If you use it between one to five, or if you do one to five measurements a day, you can roughly
expect a two to four-day battery life. Once the battery is empty, you can recharge it using
the micro USB cable that comes in the box. You just plug it in, plug it into USB port or to a,
you know, your phone charger or whatever, and it charges in about two hours or so.
It's fully charged. What I do when I use it during the day I just plug it in in the evening,
and then on the next morning, it's ready to use again. The other thing that's
that I should mention is the mouse piece here is replaceable and it actually comes... Biosense
comes with two mouse, mouse pieces in the box, so you can just take this guy off, replace it,
and put a new one on. I've never replaced the mouse piece, so unless you No, it,
or you, you know, you. I dunno what you would do to make it deteriorate. It's medical grade... so
that doesn't, you know, go bad or anything. Even if you use it with different people.
We just wipe it off. You know, if we use it with, you know, among the family and different family
members use it throughout the day, we just wipe it off and that's pretty much it. The other thing
I should mention is every reading that you take, every measurement that you take it's automatically
synchronized to your mobile phone via Bluetooth. So there's a Biosense app that I will show you
here in a moment, and it keeps tabs of all of your readings. And I just mentioned that you know,
there are several family members here at the Kummer tribe who use the device.
Obviously, if you do that, then all of those readings would be in your app and
it kind of, you know, messes with your measurements and timeline. If you want to
use it for analytic purposes, it's better to have only one person use Biosense. Otherwise, you know,
your data might not reflect your own readings as you see it in the app. So, just FYI, I've
mentioned it briefly before, but I wanna mention it again, especially in comparison to, you know,
regular blood tests or urine test strips. The accuracy of Biosense is what makes this
device unique. If you have two Biosense devices and you take measurements back to back, you get
the same reading. If you measure you know, now and five minutes later, unless your keto levels
have changed, which they likely have not, you get the same reading, so it's very consistent,
very reliable, and very accurate. And that's really one of the major
advantages of Biosense in comparison to some of the other products on the market now. For
the average consumer, it might not make a huge difference if there is maybe a little
discrepancy between readings, but obviously, in a medical environment, it is very important.
And I also, for me, you know, if I measure something, I want to make sure that what I get,
the measurements I get are accurate. And with Biosense, I know that they are accurate. They are
scientifically proven to be accurate and I really appreciate that. Now, from a cost perspective,
how much is Biosense? Well, the device costs $299, which is not inexpensive.
It's a lot of money. However, if you keep in mind that a regular test strip if you wanna do a finger
prick test, costs approximately 50 cents, you can imagine that you know, if you test over months and
even years, that can add up quickly. And so with Biosense, you have the one-time cost and every
single measurement is then free, so to say. So there is a return on your investment over time,
depending on how often you take measurements as part of my testing. As part of my lifestyle,
we've been taking hundreds and hundreds of tests using Biosense and it has certainly
paid off. And of course, you know, you have the convenience of just having to blow into the
device instead of having to stick a needle into your finger, which makes it more convenient
and less painful, obviously over time as well. So there are a lot of pros to using Biosense over
some of the other traditional methods. You know, I'm not even talking about urine test strips,
which is also, you know, somewhat not invasive but also fairly inaccurate.
So it's not only about you are in ketosis or are you not, it's how deep you are in ketosis
and for how long your in ketosis, depending on the health goals you want to achieve.
So with that said, let's take a look at the Biosense mobile app, which has a ton
of features that can make your ketogenic or low- carb journey significantly more pleasant,
more insightful and help you achieve your goals faster. So when you open up the app,
the first thing that you see is your Today View. So you see the last measurements. So I have five
ACEs, again, corresponds roughly to 0.5 mmol per liter of BHB. And the reason why
my ketone levels are relatively low is because I'm not in ketosis. I'm not on a ketogenic diet
every single day. I'm on an animal-based diet, and I eat different amounts of carbohydrates
depending on my workout regimen. But typically in the morning, I mean,
right now it's 10 in the morning. You know, I've, I'm fasting until lunch typically,
and so I have either residual amounts of ketones. Or low ketone levels in my breath and in my body
as an indication that my body went through some of the glucose stores or the glycogen stores
overnight and starts getting into ketosis. Right? And one of the, the one thing that you
can see here is the second score actually you see is your ketone dose. And that's important because
for most of my keto low-carb journey, I was just focusing on getting into ketosis,
but I really had no idea. Should I be at 0.5 mmol per liter? Should I be at one?
Should I be at two at three? Should I be really deep into ketosis? What's the best ketone dosage
for the goals I want to achieve? So lately there's been a lot of scientific research
that suggests that depending on the health goal that you have, you might need a specific ketosis
dosage. And so with Biosense, Biosense has picked up on that because they're part of those clinical
trials and they've started implementing the concept of ketosis dosing or ketone dose.
And so if you go to the "Me" tab down here. You can select the health goal that you have,
you know, be it improve sleep, improve cognitive function, mental clarity, weight loss you know,
treat or prevent mental disorders like Alzheimer's, improve your metabolic health,
metabolic flexibility, et cetera, et cetera. So there are different goals that you can pick
from, and you can also set your ketone dose. Now, one thing I should mention is that the app does
not tell you yet what your dosage of ketosis should be based on your health goals. That's
something that Biosense is working on actively and will add to the app likely over the next
couple of months and years. But for now, you get a goal.
50 is the default goal, which is fairly easy to achieve. So with every breath you take,
whenever you're in ketosis, you have trace amounts of ketones, it increases your dosage and you can
see that then reflected on the home screen. So right now I took two measurements this morning in,
right in the morning at around 8:00 AM. I had a ketone score of three ACEs and
then later on it was at Five ACEs, so I got a little bit more into ketosis,
and so my score is seven. Now, it doesn't just add up those scores. There is a formula behind
on how the, that ketones score is calculated. But you can see your ketones dose and how far you are
away from reaching your daily score of 50 in my case. Now, if we go back to a
to a previous reading here, maybe here, I think on the sixth or so,
I was fairly high, so I achieved a score of 77. So I was way above the 50,
but the idea really is to A, encourage you to keep using Biosense, to keep accumulating
data and to stay longer and deeper in ketosis depending on the health goal that you have.
And over time, I'm hoping that Biosense will have more clinical data to tell you exactly
what dosage that you need based on the goal you're trying to accomplish. That's not quite there yet,
but at least the framework is already there so you can keep tracking your
dosage and then use all of the data you've accumulated once that capability is there.
Once the scientific research tells us what dosage we need for a particular health goal,
you already have all of the data here in the app and you can then use it and change it and modify
it and make it work so that you can reach your goals even faster. And the other thing really
with the ketones dose score is that it keeps you motivated, even for me, that I'm not in on
a ketogenic diet on a daily basis anymore. Whenever I see that score, and I'm like, ok,
I'm only 10 points or so away, you know, I'm like, Okay, I'm not gonna have my carbs yet,
and I'm gonna keep using Biosense because I wanna reach that score, even though it's,
you know, in my particular case, it's not really relevant that I reach a certain score.
I kind of know my lifestyle and where I wanna be. But for someone who is new to a ketogenic
journey or low carb journey, that's incredibly motivating to keep pushing and to, you know,
keep making the right choices to reach your goals, be it weight loss, speed, improved sleep or
cognitive function, whatever the case might be. I really like that. The other thing that I really
like in the Biosense app is the Fasting Timer. A lot of people who start a ketogenic journey
also end up with intermittent fasting, and that is because once your body is accustomed and efficient
at burning fat for energy. You are less hungry. You eat less often because whenever you don't eat,
your body can burn its own fat for energy. That's really one of the reasons why ketogenic
journey is, or ketogenic diet is so efficient for fat loss because whenever you don't eat. Your body
gets its energy from burning its own fat, so you lose weight without feeling hungry. And it's a,
it's an incredible way of how your body can actually use stored fat as a source of energy.
And so my wife and I have practice intermittent fasting for several years, and we do it in our,
not the same way every day. We don't have a fixed schedule. We do it more opportunistically,
but especially in the beginning, we always like, Okay, when was the last meal we had? How long do
we have to fast to reach our, you know, 16-hour fasting window et cetera, et cetera, depending
on what you wanna do. And with the Fasting Timer,
It makes it very easy because you can set when you, You can set the time when you had your last
meal when the fast started, and then it tells you when your fast is going to end and it shows you
your ketones scores along the way if you measure while you're fasting and you can pick between
different fasting methods or regimens that are built-in there already, or you can select your
own one so you can customize your own fast. If you wanna do a five-day fast or
whatever the case might be, or a 12-hour fast or whatever you know you wanna do,
you can customize it in here. You can add it to the list, and then you can simply select it.
Now, in my case, we typically do a 16:8, meaning we fast for sixteen hours, and then we have an
eight-hour eating window. Sometimes we do 24, sometimes we do longer again, very opportunistic,
depending on if we are traveling et cetera, et cetera. And I really like that. Very convenient
to keep tabs on your intermittent fasts. The other thing that I wanna point out is
here in the app is the "Explore" tab. Which not only gives you some basics around Biosense. You
know how to use it, when to use it, et cetera. But it also helps you or gives you useful tips
on how to get into ketosis faster. You know, by intermittently fasting, maybe by intensively
working out, by emptying your glycogen stores. It tells you a little bit about nutrition,
what to eat, what not to eat, if you wanna, you know, increase your ACEs score,
et cetera, et, etc. So a lot of useful information in here that you can use to make your ketogenic or
low-carb journey more convenient, more pleasant, and more frictionless at the end of the day.
And yeah, that's, you know, that's the Biosense app. I, I should say that a couple of years ago,
it was a fairly rudimentary and somewhat clunky app. Again, because Biosense has a clinical
background, you know, perfect user experience and slick app wasn't really the main priority
for the company behind Biosense. But in the last couple of months,
maybe in the last year, Biosense has improved that app significantly. I really like using
it now. It shows me everything I need to know, you know, on the home screen, I can dive into,
you know, all my, my readings by simply going to the "Me" screen, you know, scroll down.
You can see the, the readings from the last I don't know, couple of days or so.
Progress indicators with your fasting, with your ketones, with your meal timings.
You can do a lot of things here on the screen. You can, you know, for example,
add activity minutes or add meals and do a lot of things. The other thing I should mention is,
and, and that's one part that I also like about Biosense, the integration with other platforms.
So for example, I can see my ketones scores in the Nutrisense app. If I pull it up real quick,
Nutrisense is a continuous glucose monitor that measures my blood sugar levels. So kind of the
counterpart to my ketones levels, if you will. I can see in here that it automatically pulls in my
breath ketones and it takes, you know, I dunno how often it synchronizes, but if you don't see
your data right away, either wait a little bit or you go to integrations and you can sync
Biosense scores here immediately. You'll go back here and then you can see your scores on the home
screen here as well. And that's super convenient because it gives you all of your information, your
blood sugar and your keto information in, in one kind of screen. So I really like that integration
that Biosense has enabled for some of the other platforms to integrate. And that was it in a
nutshell. Again, Biosense is incredibly accurate, super convenient. You pay upfront for the device,
but you don't have to pay them for every single measurement. That makes it more cost-effective
over time. I love the convenience. I love the accuracy. Very important,
and it's hands down my favorite ketone meter on the market. And I've tried many different
types: urine, blood, breath ketone meters. Biosense is by far the most accurate, the
most convenient one. The most reliable one and it integrates well with other platforms that I use,
such as my continuous glucose monitor, and I absolutely love it. If you want to give
Biosense a try. I have a discount code. Check it down in the description. Check out my blog
post that goes into even more detail of why I like Biosense so much or check that out
as well. And with that, we're gonna wrap it up. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. If
you didn't like it, let me know in the comments what I could have done better. Until next time.