38: Should You Be Using Exogenous Ketone?

[00:00:00] Michael Kummer: What do they do in the body? Well, I'm going to talk about the pros and cons of supplementing with exogenous ketones. I'm going to talk about some of the practical tips and considerations, including some of the ketone brands that I use. If you can improve energy metabolism in the brain by feeding the brain ketones, It helps.

[00:00:21] When I drink ketones within 30 minutes, my brain works better. If you consume too many, you can, you know, have, feel side effects. Protect your muscle tissue, grow lean muscle tissue, etc. Just, or based on a healthy lifestyle, supplementing with exertionless ketones is, is definitely, is a no brainer at the end of the day.

[00:00:42] Everyone should at least once try supplementing with ketones. Notice how they feel differently and then decide how they can leverage that improved cognitive performance. You're listening to the Primal Shift Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve [00:01:00] optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society.

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[00:01:47] So in this episode of the Primer Shift podcast, I'm going to share with you one trick or one type of supplement really that you can leverage to almost immediately boost your cognitive performance. improve [00:02:00] athletic performance, as well as speed up recovery after intense workouts. And of course, I'm talking about exogenous ketones.

[00:02:06] Now, if you don't know what ketones are or what exogenous ketones are, don't worry about it. In the first section of this episode, I'm going to talk about ketosis very briefly. At least, you know, what those things are and how they, how they work in the body, what they do in the body. I'm going to talk about the pros and cons of supplementing with exogenous ketones.

[00:02:27] I'm going to talk about who should consider supplementing with exogenous ketones because I think almost everyone can benefit. But there are certain groups in the population that can benefit maybe even more, especially if cognitive performance, if mental performance are important to you. I'm going to talk about some of the practical tips and considerations.

[00:02:49] including some of the ketone brands that I use. And I'm going to refer you to a very detailed blog post that talks about all of the different ones and their individual pros and cons, et cetera. [00:03:00] And then we're going to wrap it up. And I hope by the end of this episode, you have enough information to say, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and try supplementing with ketones.

[00:03:08] and see how my body responds in particular, you know, my mind. So let's talk about ketones in general. What are ketones? You know, what do they do in the body? Well, ketones are a form of energy for your body. You know, if you have listened to any of the previous episodes, you probably remember that there is glucose, there are ketones, there is lactic acid, and there are different types of energy substrates that our cells can use.

[00:03:34] to produce energy. Fuel for cells, basically. And ketones are one of them. And ketones just happen to be the preferred type of fuel for certain organs, including the brain. Ketones for the brain are like rocket fuel, and it appears that your brain function improves dramatically, or can improve dramatically, in the presence of ketones.

[00:03:56] And, uh, Ketones are a [00:04:00] metabolic by product if you're on a very low carbohydrate diet, like a ketogenic diet. And the metabolic state during which ketones are produced is called ketosis. That's the underlying principle of a ketogenic diet. But don't worry, you don't have to be on a ketogenic diet to leverage the benefits of ketones.

[00:04:17] The second instance where ketones are produced, is during prolonged fast. So if you don't eat anything, you know, not even carbohydrate, nothing for extended periods, your body's metabolism shifts to burning fat because that's the only thing more or less that is available as a sustainable fuel source. You know, I mean, there is also, you know, glucose, obviously, you know, thanks to gluconeogenesis and, you know, maybe some of the other fuel substrates, but predominantly, if you don't consume any food, Your body makes ketones and starts fuels, starts fueling those cells that can use ketones.

[00:04:52] Not all of the cells can. But the brain is one of the organs and the cells within the brain can and thrive on [00:05:00] ketones. And there are different types. And then of course, you know, the ketones that are produced inside of your body are called endogenous ketones. The ones that you can consume in the form of supplements are called exogenous, exogenous as in, you know, coming from the outside.

[00:05:14] And there are different types of exogenous ketone supplements. There are sorts, meaning where the ketone bodies are bound to. salts. There are ketone esters where the ketones are bound to esters, you know, different chemical structure. And, you know, some people even argue that MCT oil is a. It's not really a form of ketones, but your body can convert some of those medium chain triclycerides from MCT oil, for example, into ketones.

[00:05:41] So those are kind of the, the sources of exogenous ketones, if you will. Now in this episode in particular, we're not going to talk about MCT oil, we're going to talk about ketone salts and ketone esters. But before we get there, let's talk about the pros or the benefits of supplementing with exogenous ketones.

[00:05:59] There is a lot of [00:06:00] scientific evidence these days that supports certain benefits associated with consuming ketones. And one of the oldest ones are actually therapeutical. Use cases. If you might remember from one of the previous episodes or even some of the blog posts that I published on MichaelKummer.

[00:06:18] com, the ketogenic diet really become popular as a treatment modality for childhood epilepsy, because scientists discovered if you're on a very low carb diet and your body makes ketones and those ketones are available for the brain, then it can help with epilepsy, especially in children and scientists discovered, well, you know, if there are kids with, with epilepsy, you know, putting them on a ketogenic diet, significantly improve the symptoms and improve their cognitive function.

[00:06:51] The problem is keeping kids on a ketogenic diet can be. an issue can be, you know, complicated depending on the type of kid [00:07:00] and, but as part of that, scientists also discovered that, well, you know, you don't really have to be on a ketogenic diet or you don't really have to fast for that matter. I think the original, I, the original use case came from fasting by not feeding kids and having them produce ketones, you know, their symptoms improved.

[00:07:14] Then scientists figured out, well, putting on a keto diet is much easier than fasting because you can only fast for so long. And then in a third step, scientists discovered, well, if you consume exogenous ketones, you get pretty much the same effect. So there is therapeutic potential for conditions like epilepsy, of course, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, anything mentally related.

[00:07:34] If you can improve energy metabolism in the brain by feeding the brain ketones, it helps. So that's one of the use cases. And of course, you know, hopefully, you know, if you're listening to this, you don't suffer from any of those issues. But if you do, Supplementing with exogenous ketones is almost a no brainer, pun intended.

[00:07:51] But there are, you know, for everyone else, there are different benefits that I argue are even, can help a lot more people. And one, [00:08:00] and the main reason why I supplement with ketones is improved cognitive function. I can tell when I drink ketones within 30 minutes. My brain works better, you know, as you might know, you know, English is not my native language, you know, I learned speaking English, you know, in, in, in school.

[00:08:19] And so it's still to a degree, a mental effort, you know, and I can tell if my brain is not working well, my, my ability to, to communicate in English efficiently is impaired to varying degrees. Because you know, my native language is German. And so by supplementing with ketones in particular, you know, before podcast episodes, before YouTube videos, before recording YouTube videos, or maybe when I have to work on very research intense blog posts, I consume ketones and I can tell my brain just works better.

[00:08:51] And that's because, you know, my brain thrives and every other brain thrives on ketones. So if you make that fuel substrate available to your brain, your brain works faster. You [00:09:00] have more mental clarity, better focus, and just better cognitive function overall. But ketones are also neuroprotective. So they protect the neurons in your brain, um, you know, preventing them from, from getting damaged, from deteriorating, et cetera.

[00:09:13] That's one use case. The second use case that also applies to a degree to me is not the weight management part, but the appetite suppression. I mean, those go kind of hand in hand. If you're trying to lose weight and if you're trying to maybe, you know, consume less than you would normally would, or maybe even implement intermittent fasting.

[00:09:32] as part of your weight loss regimen, then having something that doesn't provide you with a lot of calories, but that can suppress your appetite is helpful. And I've noticed that when I fast for extended periods, consuming ketones, helps me feel less hungry. And that's because ketones seem to interfere with, or interact with some of the hunger hormones, including ghrelin and leptin.

[00:09:56] You know, one is responsible for making you feel hungry. And the other one is [00:10:00] responsible for making you feel satiated. And by modulating those hormones, exalting those ketones or ketones in general can suppress your appetite. And that can help with extended fast. That can help with, you know, weight management.

[00:10:13] And if you feel like, Oh, I'm hungry, I need to eat something, but you're trying to lose weight, You know, have a shot of ketones and you don't feel hungry anymore, and it can, you know, speed up your weight loss, uh, effort. Athletic performance is another one. I'd actually did a, a very intense workout, the Murph Challenge.

[00:10:27] It's, you know, if you do CrossFit, you know what that is. Um, last year at the end of a 48 hour fast, and I have a separate YouTube video on this, you know, kind of documenting that. And I was only fueled with ketones, with a very high quality ketone ester. And I improved my performance from the previous year by 10 minutes.

[00:10:45] So instead of 64 minutes or whatever, I did the workout in 55 minutes, you know, which, you know, the absolute time is not very impressive, but keep in mind, I did this fasted, you know, no food for 48 hours, and then I did the workouts. And that [00:11:00] obviously is a whole different ballgame than if it would have just been fat, you know, normally, and then do the workout.

[00:11:05] But just by consuming ketones and changing nothing else, my performance has dramatically improved. Ketones are also, they can also protect muscle tissue against damage and they can improve muscle protein synthesis. So if you consume ketones as part of your workout regimen or maybe post workout and recovery, You can actually improve or help your body maintain muscle tissue, build new muscle tissue and be much more efficient with that than, you know, without.

[00:11:30] So those are some of the pros and, and use case benefits of supplementing with exogenous ketones. But there are also some downsides to it. And one of the downsides, you know, is cost. A high quality ketone supplement is not exactly inexpensive. There are different types I've mentioned before. There are ketone salts, which are typically.

[00:11:48] less expensive because they are less expensive to manufacture, but they're also less effective and they can cause gut issues. And that's really, you know, the second downside specifically of ketone [00:12:00] salts. If you consume too many, you can, you know, feel side effects, you know, like cramping, you know, diarrhea, bloating, et cetera.

[00:12:09] That is usually not an issue with ketone esters, at least I've not experienced that. So if you go, if you, you know, take ketones, If you consume them, the premium product, so to say, the more expensive product, you're much less likely to have gastrointestinal issues, but it can happen. The other thing is, you know, for many people, whenever, whenever they hear a shortcut, whenever they hear something, Ooh, this can, you know, help me do X, Y, Z, they do this while still, you know, maintaining maybe a poor diet.

[00:12:36] So in other words, you know, if you start consuming ketones while on a standard American diet, Yes, you might get some of the benefits, but that's sort of, that's not really the point of it. You know, you don't, you, you cannot enjoy optimal mental performance or cognitive performance if you're, you know, foggy all the time because of poor diet and then just consume ketones and do a little bit better.

[00:12:54] Yes, you likely do better, but it's not a replacement for, you know, a [00:13:00] proper diet, for proper sleep, for proper stress management, etc. Ketones are not gonna cancel out the metabolic impact. of a high carb meal, for example, you know, so that there is a, there can be a false sense of security and you have to be mindful of that.

[00:13:14] The other thing is there is not really any, or there's only limited long term research on potential side effects of consuming or chronic supplementation with exogenous ketones. They seem to be very safe. Um, I've used them, you know, over several weeks and several months, even on a daily basis without noticing any negative side effects.

[00:13:35] But doing this for a decade, I don't know what it's going to do. These days, you know, I don't consume ketones every day. I do it strategically whenever I need a boost in mental performance. Uh, maybe because, you know, I didn't sleep as well as I, as I, you know, would have otherwise. Or if I have a very, you know, research intense blog post where I need to be hyper focused, etc.

[00:13:54] I consume ketones. Um, but I don't do it chronically and not every day. So now the [00:14:00] question is, why should, you know, who should worry about or who should consider consuming ketones? And I think almost everyone can benefit from them. Who cannot benefit from improved cognitive performance? Who cannot benefit from potentially improved athletic performance or physical performance, more generally speaking, and, you know, improved recovery, you know, improved muscle protein synthesis.

[00:14:19] I mean, those are all things that if you live a healthy lifestyle, that includes exercise, that includes, you know, all of the things. We've been discussing on the podcast, you can benefit, but specifically, I want to say that professionals for who mental performance is important, like healthcare professionals, academics, researchers, business executives, entrepreneurs, you know, all of those people who can really benefit from being on top of the game mentally by obviously living a healthy lifestyle, but then, you know, taking it up another notch, uh, can benefit from supplementing with ketones.

[00:14:51] You know, I think those, and those are likely the. The group of people who can also, you know, afford supplementing with ketones. Maybe not so much in healthcare, you know, [00:15:00] depending on, you know, your job, but definitely, you know, if you're a business executive or. You wanna amp your games, exogenous ketones are a very safe and effective way of doing exactly that.

[00:15:12] Of course you know, athletes and fitness enthusiasts, if you're like me, and you want to perform well at the gym, you want to recover quickly, you want to, you know, protect your muscle tissue, grow lean muscle tissue, et cetera, just all based on a healthy lifestyle. Supplementing with exogenous ketones is, is definitely, is a no brainer at the end of today.

[00:15:30] There are also individuals who want to follow a very low carb or ketogenic diet, or who practice intermittent fasting. And the reason for that is that if you, if you embark your journey towards low carb eating, you know, it's, it's, it's difficult for some, you know, cutting out carbs, you know, getting rid of the carb cravings and going through the initial adaptation, et cetera.

[00:15:50] I've. Notice that supplementing with ketones can help you. Of course, there is the whole electrolyte issue as well, you know. Usually, keto flu is more related to an electrolyte [00:16:00] imbalance than, you know, to a lack of ketones. But nevertheless, whenever I switch to very low carb eating for a period, I've noticed it helps supplementing with ketones.

[00:16:11] If you want to fast for extended periods and still be able to, Go work out and do certain things, you know, maybe perform better a little bit mentally as well as physically than you would otherwise supplementing with ketones makes sense. Um, and then there are obviously all the medical use cases I've mentioned before, you know, for any type of, of, of mental or cognitive issue, be it, you know, epilepsy, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's by, you know, I'm not a medical doctor, so nothing of what I say should be considered medical advice, but nevertheless, there's a lot of scientific research out there that suggests supplementing with ketones, having ketones available for the brain.

[00:16:45] can help with many of those issues. Of course, you know, the medical supervision that you're likely, um, under anyway. So, you know, those are the use cases. Those are the people who can benefit, but realistically, as I said before, I think almost everyone should at [00:17:00] least once try supplementing with ketones, notice how they feel differently, and then decide how they can leverage that improved cognitive performance.

[00:17:09] You know, in their everyday lives, in their job, maybe in the business, you know, with parenting, et cetera, et cetera. There's so many use cases where you can do better than just performing better in your head. Right now, I've mentioned before, there are different types of ketones, ketone supplements, the salts and the esters.

[00:17:25] And there are even different types of esters and products that appear to be esters, but are not really. And instead of going into all of those details, I would just. encourage you to check out my blog post. I'm going to link it down below. But if you just go to michaelkummer. com and search for best ketone supplements.

[00:17:42] You'll find that blog post with all of the brands that I've tested and my take on their effectiveness my favorite product by far Just as a athletic cognitive enhancer is Delta G I think it's the highest quality ketone Astra It also is, you know on the upper end of the [00:18:00] pricing, but it's incredibly effective and has the most scientific research behind it, but there are other ones.

[00:18:06] There are, you know, ketone eight, if you're just into, you know, consuming like an energy drink that has ketones or consuming something that's the company called a keto whole like alcohol, but with ketones, so it doesn't have any real alcohol, not any ethanol that is, but it kind of, you know, tastes like an alcoholic beverage, even though it's not, and it has all the ketones and all the benefits without of the downsides.

[00:18:29] They are different brands, you know, again, that I've been using over time. They are great salts, they are great esters. Check out the blog post to learn more. The way I use them, um, strategically for very intense workouts, especially if I embark on them in a fasted state. And most, that's not very often. I mean, I, I workout fasted every day, but I don't consume ketones for those workouts every day.

[00:18:50] Simply, they're just regular workouts. But if I do something very intense, like that once a year MIRF challenge, where I don't eat for two days and then, you know, do a very brutal [00:19:00] workout, I use ketones. That doesn't happen very often. Most of the time where I use ketones is, Simply for improving my cognitive performance before doing a recording, before writing a blog post, you know, certain things.

[00:19:13] And I do this, maybe I want to say, you know, maybe two times a week or so on average, where I really want to boost my mental performance and make sure, you know, it's as good as it possibly can. So I can, you know, speak intelligently or write intelligently about something that appears to be very complex for me.

[00:19:29] And that's pretty much it, you know, in terms of dosing and timing, for me, I can feel the benefits within 30 minutes. I consume them, um, I consume the ketones, and then 30 minutes later, I feel my mind being just quicker, sharper, you know, I'm more laser focused. And very often, then I also just do a breath analysis to see how my ketone levels have changed in my breath.

[00:19:51] And very often, within 30 minutes, tops an hour, I can see, You know, an increase, not only blood ketone count, you know, if, if you have a blood [00:20:00] ketone meter, but also my breath ketones improve relatively quickly. And that's it, you know, it's one of those things that are a, a shortcut. Yes, for sure. But I think it's a fairly safe shortcut.

[00:20:13] And if you're already doing a lot of things right, then there is really no reason why not also leverage exogenous ketones. They are such an easy, Okay. and an effective way to improve cognitive performance, physical performance, recovery. There is really not, there are not a whole lot of reasons other than the cost factors, I want to say, uh, to not use them at least occasionally.

[00:20:35] So with that, we're going to wrap it up. It was a short episode today, but I think I got through what I wanted. If you have any questions about it, shoot me an email, make sure you check out the blog post. If you're interested in any of the ketone supplements that I use for many of which I have discount codes.

[00:20:50] So check that out. I'm going to link it down below in the show notes. And we're going to wrap it up and I hope I see you and hear you in the next episode.