Posted on 10/12/2025 7:09:07 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
A supplement of ketones may be the magic bullet that allows patients using weight-loss drugs to avoid the potentially adverse side-effect of a shrinking heart and skeletal muscle, according to a study.
In their initial studies, Dyck's team confirmed the expected loss of skeletal muscle, which studies show can account for nearly 40% of the total weight loss.
To address the unknowns, the team looked at a natural energy source the body produces: ketones.
Ketones are produced by the liver when the body runs low on carbohydrates, typically during fasting or when following a low-carb, or ketogenic, diet. Recent work also showed that ketones are necessary to preserve skeletal muscle mass.
For the follow-up study, Dyck's team paired semaglutide with a ketone ester, a drinkable supplement that the body converts into ketones, mimicking the elevated levels of ketones in the blood.
The results in obese mice were dramatic.
"It turns out it does a fantastic job in protecting from muscle loss—skeletal muscle loss and loss of cardiac mass," says Dyck.
Mice that received the semaglutide and ketone ester combination did not lose as much total body weight as the group receiving semaglutide alone. However, further analysis showed that this lower total weight loss was actually a positive sign.
"When we looked deeper into where that weight loss came from, the same amount of fat was lost, but the ketones prevented muscle loss," Dyck says.
The mechanism behind this protective effect appears to be centered on the body's energy factories: mitochondria.
He explains that semaglutide appears to impair the mitochondria, which generate energy for the muscles. Without this energy, muscle can waste away. This process happens when the body begins to break down muscle for fuel.
"When you give animal models ketones, it protects the mitochondria from being impaired," Dyck says.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
And to further discuss this, the reason bodybuilders take these aminos while in a calorie deficit is to provide fuel for the liver to keep the body going and to cause the body to avoid eating muscle, instead selecting fat to consume (as the ketones are not needed).
End product Ketones may be a more direct route but I don’t know if they can pass through the GI or cause stomach aches. Aminos do not.
Sigh. Just because you don’t know ketones are the building block of key aminos, doesn’t mean you should say “they are a completely different group of chemicals”.
That’s like saying two slices of bread and a spoonful of peanut butter is a completely different thing than a peanut butter sandwich.
Umm, a ketone is defined by the chemical group C=O with R groups (usually a carbon atom or chain) branching off of the carbon.
Doesn’t HAVE to be an amino acid when all is said and done.
It’s like the “all cats are mammals” and all that.
That had nothing to do with anything relevant.
All of the ketones in question (the ones made from consuming muscle you want to spare, not the fatty acids you want to consume) are created by the disassembly of ketogenic amino acids, notably leucine, isoleucine, lysine, phenylalanine, and a few more I can’t recall.
By supplementing with these amino acids when in a calorie deficit, muscle is spared because: (1) muscle doesn’t have to be broken down to consume fat and (2) the ready availability of the aminos facilitates the shift of the body away from the creation of glucose from muscle to the creation of glucose in fat.
OK, are those the specific ketones used in supplementation then?
Thanks for letting me know.
The article mentions a ketone ester to be drunk, not necessarily (that I could tell) ketones derived from the broken-down-by-the-body-in-catabolism-amino acids...
Bkmk
Yes, by supplementing with ketones, you don’t have to catabolize muscle to get the ketogenic aminos that are used to make ketones.
An existing, well documented, alternative approach is to supplement with ketogenic aminos and let your liver make ketones.
I’m personally leery about drinking (or eating) ketones as there is a feedback mechanism in your body to prevent over production . Not sure if ketoacidosis could be caused by drinking ketones but it certainly is plausible.
The article made it sound like the body of the drinkable ketones were not amino-acid-dervied.
If not, it'd be interesting to find
a) if non-amino-derived ketones do a better job then amino-derived at sparing muscle
b) how much of the ketones are burned by other tissues before the brain grabs its share.
I’m personally leery about drinking (or eating) ketones as there is a feedback mechanism in your body to prevent over production . Not sure if ketoacidosis could be caused by drinking ketones but it certainly is plausible.
What is the typical blood concentration mmol/dl when a diabetic goes into ketoacidosis?
And does the body have a mechanism simply to refuse absorption from the digestive track, or to increase the internal thermostat to increase burn rate, if one drinks them as part of a catabolic-sparing weight loss program?
Don’t know any of the answers to your very good questions.
Symptoms of overdose of ketones are pretty ugly, though.
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