Brett Melanson, a PhD Candidate in Behavioural Neuroscience, describes how exogenous ketone supplementation, precisely in the form of ketone esters, can enhance performance and possibly reduce anxiety-like state. Combining ketone esters with ketone-salts or MCTs may also enhance motor performance. The addition of keto esters to a ketogenic diet may also provide benefit in reducing the long-term elevations in lipid and cholesterol that can arise from a persistent ketogenic diet alone.
Nowadays, the idea of ketone ester diet has already been utilised by nutritional companies like Ketone Aid, which received positive feedback from athletes claiming a boost to their typical performance compared to training without the ketone ester supplementation.
Glucose or Ketones? Carbs or fats? Carbohydrates have been a staple part of meals for centuries, but there is evidence that ketones produce more energy per mole of substrate than glucose, while optimising body composition, cognition and sports performance.
Brett Melanson, a PhD Candidate in Behavioural Neuroscience, talks about how following a ketogenic diet allows our body to tap into fat stores to produce energy during extended periods of low glucose availability. He explains that burning ketones instead of glucose preserves carbohydrates in muscle. Therefore transitioning the body’s energy dependence from glucose to ketones could be beneficial in the long run, both mentally, and physically.
Ketosis describes a metabolic state where the level of ketones in your bloodstream elevate and the body burns fat for energy. Ketosis may sound like a strange and exotic phenomenon, but it is quite natural - humans evolved to use fat as energy. Nowadays this seems weird because we are over-consumers of carbohydrate and live sedentary lifestyles. A state in which we are never short of a carb refuel.
