My take on continous monitoring of blood ketones
Posted by Michel Lundell on
This morning I got a message from a friend that found a "Continous Blood Ketone Meter" like the ones that is used for glucose monitoring. He wanted my take on this.
As you might know by now if you read some information about ketones on our website, blood ketones are not the ketone that is created when fat is metabolized into ketone energy, so the "new" cgm does not show the "production" of ketones from fat, instead it shows how much your body does not need/can not use. In my opinion this is more complicated to interpret ... "oh i get a value of X which shows how much my body doesn't need or can use or havent used yet".
A better option for those who want's to be healthier is then (if one absolutely want something through the skin) is to monitor the glucose. High levels of glucose damages the blood vessels and cause inflamation. What happens next is that immune defence will come and cover the damage until new cells are in place. This is where issues may arise when to many "repairs" been done. Every "repair" leaves a scar tissue. If the damage is repeated, scar tissue will build up and there will be less space for immune response to work, and the blood vessel might be clogged. The reason may seem that the immune response (cholesterol) is the responsible, well ... true in a way but not actually the real reason.
So monitoring the glucose is a better choice. Even a person having type 1 diabetes may not need both glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate monitoring. If having control over glucose, the formation of NAD+ is normal and metabolizing the spared ketone energy (beta-hydroxybutyrate) into AcetoAcetate (the ketone that is neded to create energy in cells (ATP). A high value of glucose inhibits that formation of NAD+ and a result of this is an acumulation of beta-hydroxybutyrate.
Just looking at "blood ketones" might be complex to understand for a person without type 1 diabetes, it could be low to anything if healthy, and a bit higher if not having enough material to produce NAD+.
To me the product of continous blood ketone measuring is for those who still belives that blood ketones reflect the metabolism of fat into ketone energy.
As you might know by now if you read some information about ketones on our website, blood ketones are not the ketone that is created when fat is metabolized into ketone energy, so the "new" cgm does not show the "production" of ketones from fat, instead it shows how much your body does not need/can not use. In my opinion this is more complicated to interpret ... "oh i get a value of X which shows how much my body doesn't need or can use or havent used yet".
A better option for those who want's to be healthier is then (if one absolutely want something through the skin) is to monitor the glucose. High levels of glucose damages the blood vessels and cause inflamation. What happens next is that immune defence will come and cover the damage until new cells are in place. This is where issues may arise when to many "repairs" been done. Every "repair" leaves a scar tissue. If the damage is repeated, scar tissue will build up and there will be less space for immune response to work, and the blood vessel might be clogged. The reason may seem that the immune response (cholesterol) is the responsible, well ... true in a way but not actually the real reason.
So monitoring the glucose is a better choice. Even a person having type 1 diabetes may not need both glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate monitoring. If having control over glucose, the formation of NAD+ is normal and metabolizing the spared ketone energy (beta-hydroxybutyrate) into AcetoAcetate (the ketone that is neded to create energy in cells (ATP). A high value of glucose inhibits that formation of NAD+ and a result of this is an acumulation of beta-hydroxybutyrate.
Just looking at "blood ketones" might be complex to understand for a person without type 1 diabetes, it could be low to anything if healthy, and a bit higher if not having enough material to produce NAD+.
To me the product of continous blood ketone measuring is for those who still belives that blood ketones reflect the metabolism of fat into ketone energy.