Okay, so let's go into ketone Ester.
So I bet a lot of people they've heard the name, but don't know what it is.
So what are ketone esters?
So first an important difference to make is the difference between the
ketones that our body produce itself.
And then on the other hand, we have the ketone Ester drinks.
So first key tones is a name refer to tree molecules, and these
molecules are produced by our liver.
Independent conditions when there are limited carbohydrates available.
So this stimulates our liver to convert, uh, fatty acids into ketones.
And those ketones can then be used for instance, by our brain to survive
periods of, uh, low energy availability.
So through fasting or also by using a ketogenic diet, we can
increase, or we can stimulate our liver to generate ketone bodies.
So this is the endogenous for ketones, but recently they
developed a ketone Ester drink.
And with this drink, you can simply.
Increase your ketone levels in the blood within only 30 minutes.
And you'll get the same levels of ketones in the blood as a couple
of days of fasting without having the difficulties of adhering to a
fasting period or to use a key to.
So why would somebody want, uh, ketones in their blood while they're exercising?
Uh, first of all, there are studies suggesting that, uh, ketones.
Can act as an alternative fuel for skeletal muscle.
So ketones can replace glucose as an energy source and as such, we
can spare muscle glycogen, which is really important because we really
need, for instance, in a cycling race.
To use muscle glycogen.
So muscle glycogen is really a rate limiting factor.
So if we can have an alternative energy source for muscle
glycogen, it's really beneficial.
And secondly, there are also indications that ketones can not only
act as an alternative fuel for muscle black women, but it may also be a
more energetically efficient fuel.
And as such, it might increase exercise performance.
And my next question is so, so I've heard of ketone salts too, right?
And those are pretty inexpensive.
And then there's ketone esters, which are like, it's like $30 or $33 for 25 grams.
It's expensive.
Um, what are, what's the difference between ketone salts and ketone esters?
So with a ketone salts, in this case, you get a ketone body.
Which is abundance to assault, uh, like for instance, potassium, but you really
need a high amount of ketone salts to get an increase of ketone levels.
And as such, you will often get some gastrointestinal complaints
due to the high salt intake.
So it's really difficult to get to high ketone levels in the
blood with the ketone salts.
Well with the ketone Ester, you only need, let's say 25 grams to get to
really high ketone levels in the bloods.
So people with, I think the problem is with ketone salts, they
like get upset stomach, right.
If they try to do too much and do they just can't tolerate it.
Yeah.
It's definitely true.
Okay.
So then you have this study and you're trying to find
out if bicarbonate can help.
Unlock ketone performance, right?
Or performance while adjusting ketone esters.
Why, what, why did you think of this?
Like what, what were you, why you combine the two?
So we first performed a study with only the ketone Ester and placebo.
And there, we observed that with the ketones.
There is a decrease in blood pH.
When you ingest the ketones and also the blood bicarbonate,
which is a buffering agent drops due to the ketone Ester intake.
And this is really negative to your performance because bicarbonate
is bicarbonate is used to buffer the proteins in your blood.
So it's clear that when you.
Uh, go to the final in a race and you have decreased blood
bicarbonates, it's definitely negative.
So therefore we might think if we can direct this decrease in blood pH and
also bloods by carbonate, we might see a beneficial effects of ketones.
So therefore, in our next study, we provided the ketone Ester
together with bicarbonates.
So look, whether there is an effect of ketones when your blood be age.
That's really cool.
So just to summarize that previous study was that we did a 30
minute time trial on that too.
Is that right?
In that case, we did, uh, first, a three hour submaximal exercise
about, and then they performed a maximum time trial of 15 minutes.
Well, no, not this one, not the bicarbonate one, but the previous
one was just ketone esters.
No bicarb.
Let's see.
Yes, I was
exactly the same study.
Okay.
Did you close both of those
studies with the 15 second sprint?
Yeah.
Uh, at the end was always, uh, a maximum sprint for approximately one minute.
Do you remember then how much lower was the performance for
the group with ketone esters?
In that study, despite the lower blood pH, there was no decrease in performance.
So performance was similar between the ketones and placebo condition,
but it's important to note that in that study, we provided ketones only
during the first part of the rates.
So when the subject started their time trial, the ketone levels were again, low.
While we also performed an artist study of which we provided ketones
during a 30 minute time trial.
And in that case, there was indeed a decrease in performance
of approximately two to 3%.
And that's significant for people.
It might sound small, but that's significant, especially if you're
doing a 40 K time trial or a, I guess it'd be a shorter time
trial in that distance for humans.
Uh it's it's significant.
Okay.
So let's go into now this study, we want to know if bicarb and ketone
esters increases performance.
And why did you think actually before in that previous one?
So.
Your blood was more acidic, but performance didn't decrease at the end.
Why did you think, did they like balance each other out the
ketone esters and the acidity?
What, what do you think happened?
Yeah, so we take that clearly the lower bicarbonate levels wouldn't
be something negative, but.
If we didn't, as we didn't observe a decrease in performance, there should
be any advantage of having the ketones.
So we think that the positive effects of the ketones were leveled
out by the negative effects of having lower blood bicarbonate
concentrations.
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