- With so many options to test your blood ketone levels,
sometimes it's easy to get an analysis paralysis
with what the right one to really utilize is.
I'm Thomas DeLauer with Keto-Mojo
and today, I want to help you understand
why blood testing is really the gold standard
when it comes down to testing your ketone levels.
Now, I'm not throwing all of the other ones under the bus,
but I want to help you understand what is truly going on
when we're measuring our ketones
using these different vehicles.
So, first off, I want to start out with the urine strips.
So, the urine strips are useful for diabetics,
here's the thing, they are created for diabetics.
The reason that these urine strips are available
at CVS or at the grocery store
is simply because they are to help diabetics
make sure that they don't end up in ketoacidosis,
not really designed to help you understand
if you are in a nutritional state of ketosis.
Now, although they will register some ketones
in the way of what is called acetoacetate,
they are grossly inaccurate and here is why,
they measure excess ketones in the urine, keyword excess.
You see, when you first start a ketogenic diet,
you create a lot of ketones
and you create so many that your body expels them
and doesn't utilize them all the way,
therefore, they show up in your urine.
So that's why it's so easy,
when you first start on a ketogenic diet,
to use a urine strip, have it turn dark purple
and be really excited that you're in ketosis
and then, a couple weeks later,
the urine strip doesn't register ketones anymore.
You, unfortunately, end up thinking
that you're no longer in ketosis
and you start scratching your head and going stir crazy
wondering why you're not in ketosis anymore,
when in reality, had you used a blood meter,
you probably would have found
that you are in fact still in ketosis,
you're just not registering ketones
in excess quantities on a urine strip.
So, although urine strips have a medical purpose,
to help diabetics understand
if they are in a dangerous state of ketoacidosis,
they are certainly not a reliable way to test
if you are in an active nutritional state of ketosis.
Okay, now let's talk about breath meters for a second,
because, at first glance,
the science is kind of interesting,
but when you start understanding
how ketones are metabolized in the body,
you kind of wonder if it's truly an accurate way.
You see, what these breath meters do
is they test what is called breath acetone
and acetone is a natural byproduct of ketone metabolism,
it technically is a ketone body.
So, at first glance, you would think,
when I breathe into a keto meter
and it registers a lot of acetone,
that you are in a deep state of ketosis.
Well, it doesn't quite work that way and here's why,
acetone is a byproduct of acetoacetate self-destructing,
so, what that means is you,
sometimes when you're in a state of ketosis,
have a certain percentage of your ketone bodies
that are, for lack of a better term, dysfunctional,
they don't really work properly.
So, what happens is they sort of implode, self-destruct,
and turn into acetone and you breathe that out.
So, the acetone doesn't really tell you
if you are in a deeper state of ketosis or not,
it just tells you if you have a level
of "dysfunctional" acetoacetate, dysfunctional ketones,
so, it's not really giving you an accurate reading
and some things that you're going to find
is right after exercise
or right after any kind of laborious work,
your acetone levels are completely different
and they vary so wildly throughout the day,
simply because of how we breathe, our respiratory rate,
and so many other factors and co-factors
that will affect how our acetone levels
and ketone levels are reflecting in our breath.
So now, let's talk about the blood meter,
which I would consider the gold standard.
It takes one step and that's testing your blood
and you're getting right to the root
of how much beta hydroxybutyrate,
the most active form of ketone, is in your blood.
Right then, right there, at that very moment,
the moment that you test,
no other metabolism effects going on, no other excretion,
no other respiration, just flat out,
what is in your blood at that very point in time.
The number that you read on your blood meter,
on your Keto-Mojo device, is where you are at,
right then and there
and that is exactly why it's a gold standard.
You're not going to have this deviation,
but it's also going to allow you to really be able to tell,
directly, what is happening at a cellular level
at each respective point in the day.
You can test right after you workout
and you might find your ketone levels go up
or you might find they go down,
it allows you to determine that bio-individuality.
You also might be able to test first thing in the morning,
you can test right before you go to bed,
you can test right before a meal, right after a meal,
and you can truly learn the data points
of what is in your blood at that very point in time
with a concrete number, with no other variables.
If you look at some of the actual breath meters out there,
you have to constantly calibrate them,
the reason you have to constantly calibrate them
is because your breath is exposed
to a lot of different things and the meters get exposed
to a lot of different things,
meaning there are so many variables
that could skew the results.
And then, of course, with the urine strips,
if you touch the urine strip, it can throw it off,
but also, you have different factors in your body as well,
how much acid is in your urine, what you ate,
the concentration of your urine,
the concentration of your blood,
although it does change from time to time
isn't going to affect the ketone readout,
you're going to end up with a concrete number.
And that is why blood testing your ketone levels
is the gold standard, and taking it one step further,
that's why Keto-Mojo is the gold standard
of all the ketone testing,
because it's accurate, it's easy to use
and it doesn't just stop at ketones,
it continues on to glucose
and some of the other more complex things
if you're interested in utilizing those as well.
So, that's a breakdown
of why blood testing is the gold standard.
Don't leave any variables on the table,
this is your body, you need the data
and you need to know how you work as an individual
without all these other co-factors.
I'll see you in the next video.