Hypoxia Diabetes, HVNM, Ketones, Keto acidosis, Glucose & Metabo

And I got into University of Oxford specializing in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So my research was looking at the metabolism of type 2 diabetes in hypoxia, which is low oxygen environment. So I looked at the differences between fat metabolism and glucose metabolism, especially in hypoxia. What happens if you put a diabetic heart in hypoxia to those substrates? Metabolism.

How's that relevant? I guess, are you referring to. Because actually I interviewed Gary Breca and he's a biologist who lives down Miami, does a lot of biohacking and coaching for performance with some of these UFC fighters and the like. And he says that most diseases are related to low oxygenation state, mitochondrial deficiencies, and subpar metabolism that's specifically causing a hypoxic metabolic state.

Now, when you're looking at a diabetic and how they operate in a state of hypoxia, I assume that's what you. The reason that you were looking at that was to see how poor oxygenation levels are affected by blood sugar issues.

So remember what I was saying, I was looking at cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Right. So I was looking at the link between them. So I'm using hypoxia as a subset of ischemia.

Cardiovascular disease causes hypoxia.

Correct.

Okay.

So when you have clotted arteries, your. Your heart is not essentially getting enough substrates going in, it's not getting oxygen going in and it's not getting all the wastage going out.

Yeah.

So as a result, you get damage to the cardiomyocytes, the cardiac cells. So my research at that time was to look at the ability of the heart to switch over to glucose to utilize more glycolysis, which we know for a fact that user doesn't use any oxygen to produce ATP. So that's a sort of makeshift mechanism to protect the heart and make sure the heart still works. And what we have found is that in diabetes there is way less metabolic flexibility when it comes to ability to shift over from fat to glucose. So that was my whole PhD.

Okay.

And then because of my passion in chronic diseases, I was working in, you know, health tech and diabetes management program until around 2019, where I, you know, HVMN and myself, we sort of got introduced to each other and we talked about it and they found my background very interesting. Combining both the scientific background as well as the entrepreneurship in the startup world.

Would that freak you out? Some company in California, because they're based out of California, right?

Yeah.

They just randomly reached out to you or.

No. So I got to know them via Their previous research lead, which was Dr. Brianna Stubbs, who's a friend. So she and I graduated from the same lab in Oxford, so we only graduated two years apart from each other. And she was like, oh, HVM is looking to hire. Would you be interested? I was like, let's have a conversation. Because at that point I was still running my own company back in Malaysia. So I was like, you know, I started building this up. I'm not gonna just give up everything, right? But then they flew me into San Francisco, really.

Talked to me, I talked to the whole team and found that their vision, and I think what drew me most to HVMN was the honesty, transparency, and scientific integrity. They put everything behind the real data and real science, which is very rare these days, especially when it comes to marketing. Everyone will market their product as if it's the best thing that ever happened to human civilization.

Right.

But they are okay and they are willing to say, okay, this product may not be the best product. Now let's reinvent this or let's innovate it. Hbm. Yeah, HVM is willing to say that let's innovate this with the current data we have and come up with something more useful and more efficient. And this kind of plays out to the history. And I can tell you, you know, the whole story of why we went from the first ever exogenous ketones in the market called Ketonesta in 2017, to ketone IQ now, which is not the same as Ketonesta.

Yeah, I definitely want to ask you about that, but I'm still curious about your own personal experience with these things. You told me before you hit the gym this morning that you took like 45. What? 45 milliliters of ketones. Like when you, when you went out there to hp, man, were you already like messing around with this stuff or was this all new to you?

So that's an interesting question because when I was studying diabetes, all I knew about ketones. Obviously, you know, we know about bhp, we know about ketones, but that was more of a side product of metabolism. That was how I knew ketones.

You knew it was something the body made, not something you could like, drink.

Correct. Some something that your body makes and something that could be dangerous in a diabetic individual, especially when it comes to ketoacidosis. So. But then when I joined hvmn, I did try the keto diet, but for me, it really cause more fatigue in the gym when I lift heavy. So what I'm doing now and as you said, you know, I had a piece of sourdough bread because I am on a lower carb side. I'm not as liberal when it comes to carbs, but I'm also not strict keto, where I have like, you know, 20 calories worth of glucose per day. So then I, you know, play around with exhaustion ketones and I realized, like you said, I can get into ketosis, get all the benefits, get the ketones into my bloodstream, into my brain, without having to conform to a strict diet, which means I can still lift heavy, I can still, you know, go about my day and be a little bit more flexible when it comes to my diet, but yet still having all the benefits of ketones. So that was when I'm like fully dialed in. Not only I am giving presentations around, you know, the US in conferences, talking about exogenous ketones and the literature around it, but I'm also a true believer that I, you know, walk the walk, that I actually consume ketone IQ on a daily basis, especially before podcast and before workout. Generally, that's my use cases before podcasts, before workout and sometimes after workout for recovery.

What's ketoacidosis?

So ketoacidosis is when you have high level of ketones in the presence of high level of glucose, especially in diabetes, because your body is, is not because of the insulin resistance. You're not taking in the keto, the glucose in the blood in the bloodstream, but at the same time, the rest of your body, like your liver is also saying that, oh, you're starving because, you know, obviously all these cells are doing respiration and metabolism. So I need to break down this fat and create more ketones.

Yeah.

So you are like starving, but also have abundance of, of substrate at the same time. And the increase, the sharp increase in ketones lower your blood ph. That's why it's called acidosis and that is what causing potentially death.

So the difference between ketoacidosis and you having ketones this morning to work out, but then also having sourdough bread, which theoretically would raise your blood glucose, is you don't have diabetes. So your body's still able to shove both the glucose and the ketones in the cells, which. Whereas if someone has diabetes and they have elevated ketones and elevated glucose, it's all just going to be hanging around the bloodstream causing an acidic state.

Correct.

Like if somebody has diabetes, should they not use ketone esters? Like, what do you think about that?

So in that sense. So a few studies came out Of University of British Columbia from Dr. Jonathan Little. They looked at diabetic individuals and obese individuals and they were given exogenous ketones after food. So post prandial and they saw a lowering effect of blood glucose. Yeah, after. So I would say in terms of if your diabetes is very severe, because we know that diabetes is a spectrum, right? Either your early stage all the way to late stage where you are just unable to take in any glucose and then your body also, you know, start creating ketones. So in that sense I would say definitely consult your doctor before you take if you have diabetes. But what we have seen so far for majority of these obese and diabetic patients, they actually manage to lower their blood glucose because there's a minor blood glucose lowering effect when you have exogenous ketones.

I was going to ask you why that happens. Because I have been using ketones and I drink them within moderation. But then if I don't eat much food during the day and I exercise and this happened to me a couple of months ago and then I have a bunch of ketones in this case, I had them before dinner and we were going out to a restaurant. It was actually case in point, Italian restaurant in this case. So I knew I was about to have carbohydrates, but I had a bunch of ketones and I felt like pale and clammy. And then I tested, I wear this continuous blood glucose monitor and I tested my blood ketones. I should test them right now actually, because it would be interesting because I just took a massive amount of ketones. I and my blood glucose was like in the 40s, so it dropped it, you know, a ton. How, how come ketones drop blood glucose.

Like so the exact mechanism of action, we still don't know for sure. But the hypothesis around it is that ketone gives signal to your liver to stop or lower or reduce the production of glucose via gluconeogenesis.

Okay.

Because even though we do eat glucose and we do have glucose intake in our diet on a continuous basis.

Our liver will create glucose via gluconeogenesis as well. What people don't understand about metabolism is not as simple as when you eat something and then you break it down and then you use it for energy. Yes, it does that, but it also does the opposite at the same time. Metabolism is consists of anabolism and catabolism. So building up and breaking down at the same time, it's a flux. So depending on what you do, depending on your activities, you either upregulate the catabolism, which is you breaking down and creating more raw materials for you to metabolize and create energy. Or if you're at rest, you upregulate anabolism, where it says you're recovering, you're sleeping. You know, upregulate these hormones that are related to building blocks, too, so that the next day you can have more energy for it.

Okay, so basically, if you were fasting all day and then you took ketones and you found that your blood glucose dropped too low, would the trick be then just to eat carbohydrates?

Absolutely. If you start feeling unwell just because you know your glucose is way too low, then have some carbs. That's perfectly fine. What people have found is that they were very surprised that their glucose dropped about 50 points, but they don't feel unwell, and they still have that energy level.

That's the weird thing. Most of the time when I'm using ketones, it'll drop my blood glucose down in, like, the 60s, you know, when I'm still having a meal here and there. I'm not pushing myself super hard with exercise and, like, fasting too much. And compared to if I don't have high ketones or if I'm not drinking ketone esters, I feel great. Like, I don't have that blah, low energy feeling that I'd normally get if my blood glucose was too low. So within reason, it seems to allow you to be in what some might define as like a hypoglycemic or at least a lower blood glucose state and still have high levels of energy. I assume just because your. Your brain and your other organs are using ketones instead of glucose as a fuel.

Speaking of which, what's your glucose level right now? You just.

It's at 87 right now.

Okay.

But so I just dosed. We started this podcast. I had those ketones, like, what, 20 minutes before the podcast, And I'm drinking more ketones.

It's probably more ketones than I maybe have a shot.

I'll test again. Yeah, let's do another shot right now. And I'll. I'll testing as the podcast goes on. So what are we drinking right now? This is like a little bottle. It says ketone IQ. Yep. It says 10 grams of ketones. Yep. And then there's a big bottle here that's like. And I think it tastes different, too. Explain to me what. What's in these bottles?

So it's essentially the same thing. It's just that this big bottle of cheers.

Excuse me as I cough. And so that's bad publicity for your company that I just shoved it down the wrong throat. But nonetheless, it actually tastes way better than back when I was first experimenting with ketones. I was blogging. So as a blogger, people send all sorts of random products to your house, and I was getting, like, these test tubes of nasty ass, like, just tasted like drinking battery acid. And this tastes a little bit better than. I'd say a lot better than that. What is it?

So you asking, you know, what's this big bottle, small bottle? They're essentially the same thing. The big bottle contains 10 servings or 100 grams of RN3 butane dial.

Okay.

And the small bottles is 10 grams. So more diluted version of a single dose of that. And we can go into what is RN3 butane dial if you want. If you. You know, if we.

So the big bottle. So if this Little bottle has 2 ounces in it, and I were to drink this whole bottle, I would be getting 10 grams. 10 grams. But if I were to drink 2 ounces of this big bottle, I would be getting what, like, 20 grams or a lot more.

See, I don't do ounces. That's the problem. I do. I want milliliters.

Okay. So basically the difference is that the big bottle is more concentrated.

Yeah. So that's 35 milliliter for 10 grams. And this is about 59 milliliters for 10.

But they're both called Ketone IQ.

They're both Ketone IQ. It's the same raw ingredient. It's the same active ingredient there. It's just these ones are easier for people to travel around. And it's, you know, TSA approved, so people can bring it with them if they don't want to check the luggage.

I take one on every plane flight.

There you go.

From what I understand, I'm going to rabbit hole a little bit here with you, so forgive me. I've heard that ketones have a DNA protective effect. Yeah, that was my reasoning due to the radiative effects and some of the stress that occurs during airline travel, combined with my ability to be able to resist the appealing yet ultimately crappy airplane food, that if I took the ketones, I would begin double whammy effect. Wouldn't need to eat airplane food or get hungry when I'm walking through the airport and pay 20 bucks for a salad. And also have the DNA protective effects. Now, the appetite stitching effects. I think we've already established why that works. It's replacing glucose as a bioavailable fuel. But is there something to the DNA repair idea?

So there is, there are quite some preliminary data to look at mitochondrial protection especially against radiation as well. In fact I just reviewed a grant application we're going to do review a draft of a grant application that we're going to apply to European Space Agency to get ketone IQ to astronauts. First of all for cognitive and physical performance. But second of all protection against ionizing radiation. Okay, so galactic cosmic protection. I know our CEO Michael Brand last year at ketocon in Austin did talk briefly about this. He sort of closed this is like this could be the future. So then I think a few months ago, CEO of a space company, he was a space and defense officer of EU and he reached out to us, he was like I used your product for endurance exercise. I really loved it. I think this has potential to be used in ESA for astronauts. So let's.

What's esa?

European Space Agency. Okay, so let's look at applying for grant. So that's what we're currently doing. Fingers crossed. We'll we'll see in a couple of months or next year. Usually this grant processes, you know, take a while but that's one of our current grant application that we have in the pipeline.

Cosmic galactic protection. You just sell that idea to Elon Musk.

I know, I know. If Elon Musk is listening to this, it's about time to send some ketones.

IQ out there listens to every episode. It won't stop blowing up my phone with questions.