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The Perks of Fasting, with None of the Work (theatlantic.com)
10 points by zwieback on Nov 7, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


Ketones aren't the goal of the ketogenic diet, they're the side effect of not eating carbs. Exogenous ketones, like this product, will put you into ketosis, because you by definition have ketones in your blood and are burning them for fuel, but I don't see any reason that fact alone would give you the real benefits of fasting or low-carb.

Fasting is good for you because it encourages autophagy; the body senses there isn't enough fuel for its needs, so it breaks down old, worn out cells and uses them as an energy source. This helps the body get rid of damaged cells and their damaged DNA, which may lower incidences of cancer.

Low carb diets limit the amount of sugar in your blood. Sugar is an inflammatory agent, and systemic inflammation leads to a whole host of issues, including heart disease and diabetes. Burning ketones in addition to all the sugar you're already eating will do nothing to offset the damage of an inflammatory diet.

This product might be helpful for switching over into ketosis for the first time. If your body isn't used to low-carb or fasting, you tend to get headaches, moodiness, and so on (often called the 'low carb flu') while your body adjusts. Having a ready source of ketones might mitigate that. Or it might not. As far as I know it hasn't been studied.

But I'm not aware of any mechanism by which adding ketones would offset the issues of an otherwise shitty diet.


Sorry, but this seems dubious. (I'm not a doctor, though.) It also seems like a bad product name for googling. :)

The reason it would taste like nail-polish remover is because acetone, the main ingredient of nail-polish remover, is a ketone. When people do a keto diet, their breath can smell like acetone for a while, and sometimes the lips chap. I really don't see why someone would drink acetone, if that's what is in the drink. (I didn't look it up.) I'd worry this could put you at risk of going into ketoacidosis.

Also, how does drinking ketones make your glucose levels plummet? Ketones come from fat metabolism. My understanding of the keto diet is that you reduce carbs to reduce glucose levels, so that your body falls back to burning fat (ketosis).




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