Do Ketones Actually Burn Fat? How to Use Drinkable Ketones, Keto Diet vs. Ketones & More!

There is one study that shows just with one dose of ketones and a week of ketogenic diet. So two different groups, they both exhibit similar effect in the functional MRI where the brain regions talk to each other more often. So the brain network stability increases with ketones. So we know the brain is more active and more efficient when ketones are present in infants. They use ketones as precursors to build brain cells, neurons. Because if you think about it, brain has a lot of fat, right? So where does the fat come from? If the fat doesn't go through the blood brain barrier, it's the ketones that is being used as precursors to rebuild the fat molecules, the fatty acids and build those cells.

My guest on today's show joined me last year for a comprehensive talk at at my dining room table. He's back. The question is, though, Lat, you know, last time we crushed ourselves in the gym with like this whole faceted routine pre podcast, did you kind of, you know, celebrate the reunion here with another.

Yes, yes, I did. I did think about you. I thought about you even yesterday because I knew we were going to have a recording. So I actually fasted for more than 24 hours now and I woke up and I did a half an hour our cardio session before we even started here. And then now I'm gonna have my first ketone IQ of the day just for the podcast.

Okay, Well, I mean, like mine, I fasted about 14 hours. There was a workout in there this morning preceded by a little ketone IQ, but I just punished like a 600 calorie smoothie. So you win.

Matching ourselves up for our fasting capabilities. For those of you who don't know who Lat is, I always butcher your last name. Do you say Mansour or Mansoor?

Mansoor.

Mansoor. It's almost like Mazwa. Dr. Lan Monsore. I first interviewed him in the podcast everything he needs to know about ketones and ketosis, which you can find in the show notes if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com DrLatt and it's spelled with a couple of T's, Dr. Latt. So if you want to understand the background of what ketosis is and what ketones are, even though we'll give you a little bit of an overview today, I highly recommend you pair this podcast episode where we kind of geek out on some of the more subtle nuances with that last episode. Lat has an MA in biotechnology from Columbia University, BS from the University of Nottingham. He's the research lead at Health Via modern nutrition, they produce ketone iq. And I like LAT because as you just heard, he not only talks to talk, but he walks the walk so he understands how this stuff feels, I think. During our last episode, didn't we, like, challenge ourselves to see how many ketones we could actually drink?

We did. We did. We drank for at least like four or five shots during the entire interview, I think. Yeah.

We made it through almost a full bottle of ketone. Like the big one.

Yes.

Yeah. Which is interesting because a lot of people say, because the ketone in that is one three butane dial, that we should have felt drunk. Yeah, I didn't. Like, I've. I felt fine. I don't know what you mean exactly.

And I felt fine. And if it was supposed to make you drunk, then we wouldn't have that many Olympians and world record breakers. Athletes who are on ketone IQ trying to break world records with them. So, you know, with anything, you can always overdose something, even glucose. You can overdose and you start puking. Right. So it's a matter of getting the optimal dose in and the use case.

If I'm going to overdose on glucose, I want to do it on Cinnabon. I'm just saying.

Go down in a blaze of glory. I actually want to get to how pro athletes are using this stuff. But before we do.

I think that a lot of people might be confused or need some clarity about what drinking ketones, kind of like what you do with ketone IQ versus just eating a ketogenic diet could do for you. And particularly what I'm interested in is are there metabolic effects of, you know, fasting, carb restriction, a ketogenic diet, et cetera, that give you something that ketones can't?

Yes. Okay, let's. Let's go back to ketone one on one, like what we did before, just, you know, covering the difference between an external source of ketones versus your endogenous ketones, which is your internal source that you produce yourself. So you need to be very low on carb storage, whether it's glucose or glycogen. Either you are fasting or you go on a keto diet. That way your body starts breaking down the fat into ketones. The reason being your brain needs energy source and usually it burns on glucose. But when you're very low on glucose, you will need ketones because fatty acids can't pass the blood brain barrier. Therefore it needs to be broken down into smaller molecules, that is ketones.

I'm going to interrupt you right there because I Think that's something a lot of people don't realize. You can burn fats as a fuel, your muscles can burn fat as a fuel, especially if you're carb restricted, because that is an alternative fuel source. Those fatty acids can't cross the blood brain barrier, therefore they need to be converted into ketones before they can.

Thank you. Yes, that's. That's the whole point. Yep. And then the external source of ketones like ketone IQ is essentially bypassing that physiological state where you need to be low on glucose. So you are not restricted by the diet or by by a fasting condition in order to have access to ketones. So you directly insert ketones, essentially the molecule, into your body to get access to it.

Are there any other organs besides the brain that would have difficulty utilizing fatty acids due to barrier mechanisms or anything else that would also prefer ketones in that state?

Not that I know of in terms of difficulty in terms of barrier. However, when I was in Aarhus University in Denmark end of last year for a symposium for cardiovascular disease by the Danish Cardiovascular Society, they actually created a tracker to put into PET scan so that they can track where ketones go when they inject them into the finger. And then they track every five seconds and see where the ketones accumulate. And surprisingly enough, while we do know that ketones do go to the brain, majority of the ketones are being soaked up into the heart. So we know that the heart actually prefers ketones whenever it's available. And they publish a paper shortly after that on Christmas Eve. By giving heart failure patients ketone IQ and just one dose, improve cardiac output, stroke volume and ejection fraction.

So let's say you or a loved one were at risk, God forbid, of a heart attack. Like it might be a good idea to have ketones around so that if an incident occurred, you could ensure that the heart is getting some kind of a fuel as it goes through that hypoxic stressful event.

Exactly. Hypoxic stressful event. Like a lot of heart complications, it's because of the deficiency in energy, Right? Deficiency in either glucose or deficiency in some form of blockage in the. In the arteries, causing deficiency in blood flow and all of that. So giving them ketones may actually provide them with the efficient energy and feel that they need. And it's funny you mentioned loved one. I'm so passionate in this area. It's because my late father died of stroke and before that he had a heart attack. So I wish I knew about ketones then, like 20 years ago and so that he can actually prevent those events from happening.

Yeah, I wish I'd known about ketones years ago for a different reason. Because when I was in triathlon and adopted a ketogenic diet, I was using MCT oil during the race. And as you can imagine racing an ironman after eight hours of drinking MCT oil, there's some disastrous occurrences in the lower GI tract. So yes, it would have been handy back when I was racing. Now, I interrupted you as you were going to the differences between a ketogenic diet and drinking yourself into ketosis.

Right. So if you are on your own, you know, ketosis, your own ketogenic diet, ketogenic production, you obviously are going to have a more consistent ketosis versus if you take it externally, it will last you probably six to eight hours if you're not working out. And if you're working out, it will last a little bit shorter. So that means you either have to top it up or you just have to use it. For certain use cases. If you are aiming for a prolonged sustained ketosis, then you obviously have to top up. So that. There goes your question earlier. Is there any conditions or any benefits that the ketogenic diet or the endogenous ketones can have that ketones ketone IQ cannot provide? So in that sense, I think the metabolic shift that you get from, from a whole diet overhaul or a lifestyle overhaul that can, for example, reverse insulin resistance, that may not happen with just external ketones. You actually have to decrease the glucose. You actually have to give your body enough time for it to repair the insulin secretion pathways in order to increase insulin sensitivity and reverse the resistance.

Right. So when I'm consuming exogenous ketones, I am getting a readily available fuel for say something like performance enhancement, appetite suppression, something that the heart could effectively use, the brain could effectively use, et cetera. However, if I am doing that and also say eating a high amount of calories more than I'm burning, or consuming excesses of glucose and carbohydrate, I'm not going to get any advantages from the weight loss, insulin management, blood glucose control standpoint. And I think that's something that you and I probably think is glaringly obvious. But I think a lot of people don't realize drinking ketones is not the same as being on a ketogenic diet. If you're looking for the metabolic benefits from a weight loss or blood glucose.

Standpoint, yeah, it's the same as taking ozempic. Right? Ozempic severely restrict your appetite and therefore you are eating Less and then you lose weight. Right. So it's not that ketone IQ is going to be your, your magic pill that you know answers to all your, your problems, but it does help tremendously. Especially even if people who are going on a ketogenic diet for weight loss journey, they do use ketone IQ to sort of one, put them, put them in a deeper ketosis state, and then two, to enhance or augment the appetite suppression aspect of things. Especially when they're on, on, on calorie deficit, a lot of them, they will experience fatigue. I know we do a lot of podcasts, we speak in public. Those instances, these people may need the extra boost for the cognitive alertness as well as the coherence as they deliver their speech.

Yeah, that's a good point. And alcohol itself, if I remember, is 7 calories per gram. So if you were consuming exogenous ketones, obviously they're so potent you're not consuming a lot of calories of them. But is a bottle of ketone I.Q. same thing, about seven calories per gram?

Yeah, it is. 70, 70 calories per 10 grams. Yeah. So seven, seven per gram.

Okay. So you'd account for that if you were using ketones for weight loss, for your daily calorie intake. But it's not that many calories. 70 calories of ketones.

Or if you want to, you can just fast and just have ketone iq and that makes like ketone iq. I was just texting my ex colleague yesterday and he's going through a 72 hour fast, which I couldn't do, but he said ketone IQ made it a breeze.

Yeah. Now, when it comes to the type of ketones you're going to make when you're on a ketogenic diet or restricting carbohydrates versus drinking an exogenous ketone, is there a difference, either from a mechanism of action standpoint or a chemical standpoint, between an endogenous and an exogenous consumable ketone?

Great question. Now, the main form of ketones that our body use for energy and being transported throughout our body is beta hydroxybutyrate, which is bhp. And the ketone that you make in your body would primarily be bhp. And then it will reversibly be converted either into acetone or acetoacetate. So let's not talk about those two, let's talk about bhp, primarily because we use that for energy and that is being measured. When you measure your blood ketone levels, that is the ketone that you measure the BHB being produced in your body. And the BHP that gets converted from ketone IQ in your liver is exactly the same as you know, molecular wise. BHB is, BHB is BHB and your body will recognize it the same and will utilize it in the same exact way.

1, 3 butane dial from ketone IQ would go through liver first. If converted into BHB, that BHB would then be identical in configuration to the BHB produced by your body when you're in a carb restricted state.

That is correct. So one way to really reaffirm that is to measure your blood ketone levels. Because as I said, if you measure blood ketones, you are measuring blood bhp. So if you're on ketos on a ketogenic diet, you measure your blood ketones, you know what level they are, you drink ketone IQ and then you measure your blood ketones, it is also measuring blood BHB and you will see that it gets converted.

Got it. And I'm not maliciously trying to make you shoot yourself in the foot here, but why wouldn't you just use bhb?

Great question as well. Because BHP is in the form of free acid. It's either because it's literally acid. So we, as part of our $6 million contract with the military, we did one of the tasks to we did compare ketone ester and free BHB acid. And what happened was the people who tried it, they almost killed themselves because the severe heartburn and the severe gi, GI irritation was too much.

I have some bottles of pure concentrated BHP in my refrigerator that I occasionally use. And the taste goes away after about three hours. It's pretty intense.

It's very extreme because it's just acid. And that's why people create ketone salts, right? Because you're binding the acid with sodium, magnesium, potassium. But then when you combine it with salt, you're overloading with salt. And then on top of that, when you overload it, you also have GI issues. So that's the whole reason why we chose R1 3 Butane Diol. But it's a great question. Because why, why don't you directly take the molecule itself? But the reason is because it's too acidic for your gi.

Yeah, yeah. I won't lie. The bhv, I mean, just in my own testing, it keeps your ketone levels elevated for a longer period of time. But you have to get past the heartburn, the indigestion, the taste, et cetera. I'm sure there are ways around that, but it's difficult to use BHP just from a pure taste and logistical standpoint. And then you mentioned something really important because a lot of people can get ketone powders which are in the, you know, they're bound to assault. But to actually have enough ketones in that to reach ketosis, you have to consume so many salts that you get gastric distress. You're drawing a lot of water into the intestines.

Exactly. And with everything else in metabolism, we are always striving for the optimal level and not just getting higher and higher and higher just because something is good.

Okay, got it. I'm glad you worked out this morning because I got a lot of annoying questions for you. So some people say ketones are the preferred energy for the brain. You've already established they can cross the blood brain barrier, so they are an energy for the brain. But this idea of the preferred energy for the brain, are there studies on that that showed the brain with the presence of glucose versus the presence of ketones will preferentially turn to the ketones as a fuel source?

I believe so. But there is one study by Muyeka Perodi that shows the increase just with one dose of ketones and a week of ketogenic diet. So two groups, they both, they both exhibit similar effect in the functional MRI where the brain regions talk to each other more often. So the brain network stability increases with ketones. So we know the brain is more active and more efficient when ketones are present. Now another, another point is this is an interview I did with Dr. Tommy Wood from Seattle and he actually pointed out that in infants they use ketones as precursors to build brain cells, neurons. Because if you think about it, brains brain has a lot of fat, right? So where does the fat come from? If the fat doesn't go through the blood brain barrier, it's the ketones that is being used as precursors to rebuild the fat molecules, the fatty acids and build those cells. So that's a very interesting point that I learned not too long ago.

Is it true that breast milk is rich in medium chain triglycerides and that would be a way it could support that?

I'm not entirely sure. But breast milk is high in fat and low in sugar. So that is essentially a ketogenic diet for the infants.

Yeah, I don't remember. I'm not Joe Rogan, so I don't have a Jamie to look it up for me right now. I'm pretty sure. Don't quote me on this. We may need to double check that breast milk is Rich in medium chain triglycerides. Thus, let's say that I'm right and it were then you're essentially getting triglycerides that can readily be converted into ketones, cross the blood brain barrier in an infant and be used for neurogenesis. Yeah, interesting. Do you think there's a way that the brain switches somehow between these two fuel sources throughout the day, glucose and ketones, or has a way of knowing which to burn?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think every organ. This is what a lot of people misunderstand with metabolism just because you switch one off. And we know that if you switch glucose on, if you upregulate glucose metabolism, fatty acid oxidation goes down. That we know is called the Randle cycle and vice versa. However, both of them actually happen at the same time. It's just the rates are being upregulated and downregulated. So it is very possible that every part of our bodies are metabolizing different fields at the same time. It's just at different rates.

So you alluded to the way that the brain works when it's on ketones. Obviously the name of your product is ketone iq. What kind of studies have been done on things like I drink a bottle of this before I take a test or before I'm preparing show notes for a podcast or going through very intellectually stimulating material, anything like that? Have you come across studies that show a direct impact of ketones on cognition?

Yes, we have seen so far the studies have been on ketone ester. So that's it for transparency. Ketoneurses have shown increase in cognition in athletes. And also in our $6 million contract that I mentioned earlier in the military in hypoxia, we also saw the increase in memory recall and increase in cognition and vigilance. Now, for ketone IQ per se, we do have a grant currently sitting, pending Congress approval for budget with the Naval Health Research center looking at tbi, so traumatic brain injury. So that will be very interesting to look at the effect of ketone I on injured brains and coordination and all of that. And we are also submitting a couple of sbirs with the University of Alabama on cognition, especially on a specific protocol where we mentally fatigue somebody and then we make them take ketone IQ and then give them more cognitive test.

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to ask you about how professional sports teams are using ketones. You even see, like, if you watch the Tour de France, they're handing them things to drink before and after. Do you have any inside knowledge of, like, how they're actually using these, like before.