What Are The Benefits Of Exogenous Ketones?

Maintaining a healthy body and fit shape is paramount to an individual’s lifestyle quality. To facilitate the achievement of these goals, people engage in various diet plans depending on their aims. The aims may include losing weight, gaining weight, controlling insulin levels, lowering cholesterol levels, and many more. If you choose the right type of diet for your needs and goals, and follow them consistently, significant results are bound to happen.

Among popular diet configurations, many fitness enthusiasts enjoy the ketogenic diet, but only a few are aware of what it is all about. A ketogenic diet, or more popularly known as the keto diet, customizes consuming high levels of fat, average amounts of protein, and deficient carbohydrate levels, with a ratio of 75-20-5.

If you’re only starting with a ketogenic diet, watch this video to discover salient points that you should know:  

Being informed about ketogenic diet, its implications, and dietary choices is essential once you incorporate external ketogenic sources, known as Keto Supplement.  


Tell Me More About Keto Diet

Diet results don’t happen overnight. Once you have started eating keto-friendly foods that focuses more on fatty food sources, your body will enter the stage of ketosis after a few days. Take note that ketosis is a natural metabolic state that your body might or might not have previously experienced. Instead of burning carbohydrates as energy fuels, your body generates ketone bodies from fat to utilize as energy.  

Some food sources that can support your keto diet are:

  • Avocado
  • Butter
  • Oils (olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil)
  • Cheese
  • Cream cheese
  • Leafy greens (kale, spinach, romaine)
  • Nuts (macadamia, almonds)
  • Seeds (sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds)
  • Fatty fish (sardines, salmon)

To make your diet journey successful, avoid the following food sources:

  • Root vegetables and tubers (carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes)
  • Sugary foods (smoothies, soda, ice cream, fruit juices)
  • Alcoholic beverages
  • Beans or legumes (lentils, peas, chickpeas)
  • A large portion of fruits
  • Processed fat (mayonnaise, vegetable oils, processed meat)

Strict Diet Regimen

While it seems like maintaining a keto diet is easy, your progress can turn into chaos if you commit a small mistake. If you have mistakenly consumed a snack that is restricted to you, your body can quickly get out of ketosis, and gaining weight suddenly comes into the picture.  

Since you have failed to maintain ketosis internally, you will need to induce the process externally. Fortunately, you can manage this anomaly with the help of exogenous ketones. These substances are usually in the form of a supplement like beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) that naturally occurs in the body.  

To explore more into the lesser-known substances called exogenous ketones, assess supplement products curated to bring your body back into ketosis, like the Keto Ignite. Provided below is a comprehensive discussion of the benefits of exogenous ketone supplements:

 

1.   A Catalyst for Ketosis

Say you consumed the wrong food source and it has thrown off your ketosis, you can still rely on exogenous ketones to keep your ketosis back on track. If you singlehandedly rely on your keto diet to bring back ketosis, it can take longer than using exogenous ketones to speed up the process. Basically, taking exogenous ketones helps you come back to ketosis faster.  

Typically, EKs exist in three forms: ketone esters, ketone salts, and medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). The latter isn’t technically a form of exogenous ketones, yet they produce similar effects.  

Depending on how rapidly the impact you want to achieve with EKs, you can take any one of these supplements. For the quickest effects, get the most potent form, which are ketone esters, which act as fast as 10 to 15 minutes upon administration. On another end, ketone salts can take up to one hour or more to be effective, which is still reasonably prompt.  

 

2.   Support Weight Loss More Efficiently

Perhaps a lot of keto enthusiasts are initially mistaken of the concept of being keto and adding in exogenous ketones to their diet. You can’t merely expect the magic to happen after taking these supplements, but you’ll have to put work through your dietary pattern. Keep in mind that exogenous ketones alone aren’t enough; that’s why they’re called “supplements.” Nevertheless, EKs make such a big difference for your weight loss goals by suppressing your appetite.  

In the 2017 study, individuals were asked to take a ketone ester or a dextrose drink, a sugary beverage, after which their levels of hunger were measured. Results showed that both substances lessened the subjects’ hunger perception and desire to eat, but only the ketone ester stayed 50% more effective up to four hours. Their ghrelin, or the hunger hormones, were significantly lower.

 

3.   Boost Athletic Performance

Most people don’t know that a ketogenic diet isn’t all about weight loss, but it can offer another fitness benefit by boosting one’s athletic performance. Before stepping into physical performance, considering exogenous ketones are an excellent option to sustain your athletic capabilities and have better post-activity recovery.  

Exogenous ketones in the form of beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and acetoacetate (AcAc) can serve as an alternative fuel source after your body enters acute ketosis induced by the EKs.  

Moreover, BHBs can prevent muscle glycogen from breaking down so that your lactate levels stay low, and this is known as the carb-sparing effect. Through consuming EKs, your body doesn’t reach its fat oxidation limit then burn carbs as fuel. In this way, your oxygen levels wouldn’t decrease, and you’ll have a less worry-free recovery after exercise.  

 

4.   Offer Neuroprotective Properties

As people age, they’re more likely to experience neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. A huge factor that keeps the brain unable to process adequately is the hyperexcitability and inflammation of neurons.  

According to this study, exogenous ketones can prevent the aggravated decline of cognitive function when neurological disorders are still its preclinical stage. Cognitive decline is usually manifested when glucose content in the body breaks down quickly, and then sufficient usage doesn’t occur. Fortunately, exogenous ketones can delay these neurodegenerative processes from happening.

 

5.   Potential Cancer Prevention

Exogenous ketones have been found to possess anti-carcinogenic properties, thus having the potential to prevent cancer. However, pieces of evidence are yet to emerge, but these are what studies have gathered so far:

  • Cancer cells are unable to utilize ketones for energy effectively compared to other healthy tissues in the body.
  • EKs slow down the growth and potential of cultured tumor cells.
  • Dietary ketone supplements can impede the progression of metastatic cancer cells in vivo.

 


Bottom Line

In different ways, exogenous ketones are beneficial for human health, and they’re not merely for weight loss. Before stepping into a ketogenic diet, keep yourself informed with dietary options and paths that you can take, and make sure you have the guidance of your dietitian. In the case of exogenous ketones, these substances can assist you during your diet through its numerous benefits elaborated above.  

 

 

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Written by HealthStatus Crew
Medical Writer & Editor

HealthStatus teams with authors from organizations to share interesting ideas, products and new health information to our readers.

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