Ketosis: How The Body Uses Ketones For Fuel On The Keto Diet

In this video we’re going to look more deeply into ketones. I will be focusing on the production of endogenous ketones, as we will save the topic of exogenous ketones (for example, ketone salts you might consume as a dietary supplement) for another video. In the first video in this series, we explored the science and biology behind the keto diet, and how it would appear as though glucose metabolism is preferred, rather than fatty acid metabolism, for the purpose of having: Hormonal Balance A fast metabolism If you have not yet seen that video, I recommend you watch it before this one, as this Keto Exploration series is in fact, a series. We’re exploring this diet in a progressive sequence. You can find and subscribe to the Keto Exploration playlist on this channel to watch the other videos. Let’s dive into today’s exploration… The first thing I want you to understand today is that the current world of “Keto Education” can be super confusing if you’re perusing through blogs, videos, and even PubMed. Everyone, even researchers, seem to have a different “opinion” which kinda sucks when you’re searching for the truth, right? So today I’m going to keep things super simple. Because, in the words of Leonardo da Vinci, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” I want to make sure you, the viewer, don’t just grasp some simple facts, but you’re also able to talk about this subject intelligently in a conversation that will inevitably come up with your friends. So what is Ketogenesis? Ketogenesis is simply the production of ketone bodies by the breakdown of fatty acids and ketogenic amino acids. What is a ketone? The liver is responsible for making sure that the body (especially the brain and heart) have access to a sufficient supply of energy from the blood. To fulfill that responsibility, it manufactures two energy substrates – glucose and ketones – and exports them into the blood as needed. The most important ketones are acetoacetic acid and beta-hydroxybutyric acid. Ketones are water-soluble small molecules. They diffuse throughout the body into cells, and are taken up by mitochondria and oxidized for energy. Now let’s look at how ketogenesis occurs… The human body prefers a glucose metabolism as a primary energy system, where fatty acid metabolism is considered secondary, reserved for survival situations. While forced ketogenesis has been shown to have some great therapeutic effects in controlling epilepsy, this special case cannot be assumed healthy across the board, especially since even other therapeutic-related keto diet research shows conflicting evidence. For example, some studies show improvements in cancer control with the keto diet while others show increasing in tumor growth, which will get into more detail later on in this video series. In order to flip the “survival switch” from glucose to fatty acid metabolism, the body requires a shift in catecholamine response, and therefore cortisol increase, the body’s chief stress hormone. Ketosis is inherently stressful on the body. It is, after all, a survival system designed to...

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