β-Hydroxybutyric acid
CompoundWikipedia
78
MENTIONS
7
EPISODES
7
PODCASTS
Search complete. 78 mentions across 7 episodes found for "β-Hydroxybutyric acid".
Sep 20, 2026
Jonathan RoselandHOST
This is another example of how the body hates consistency.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
And this might be interesting to some of you, Dave is no fan of BHB ketone salts.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
I believe that taking ketone salts regularly is not a good idea.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
In the last interview he gave before he passed away, Richard Budvich, the world's most experienced ketone researcher who studied ketosis for more than four decades, that's longer than I've been alive, told me that ketone salts cause mitochondrial harm.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
Are they safe for short-term use as during a race? Almost certainly.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
Do you want to take them regularly? Probably not.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
So I tried a BHB ketone supplement and I loved it.
Jonathan RoselandHOST
It tasted amazing.
Ben BikmanHOST
So usually the term ketone bodies is referring to the three ketones that are a part of this ketogenic process in the liver.
Ben BikmanHOST
The first one, beta-hydroxybutyrate or BHB, that is the dominant circulating ketone that we have in the blood, and it is, uh, what we are elevating most significantly when we're talking about ketosis or ketoacidosis.
Ben BikmanHOST
And this is what we measure with the blood strips.
Ben BikmanHOST
When you prick your finger and you put that drop of blood on a little strip in a ketone meter, that's what you're measuring.
Ben BikmanHOST
It is also what the new continuous sensors measure, not from the blood, but from the interstitial fluid.
Ben BikmanHOST
As I said a moment ago, more on that in a moment.
Ben BikmanHOST
Acetoacetate is the kind of firstborn ketone, um, but it's at much lower levels in the blood than BHB is.
Ben BikmanHOST
This is what you measure in the classic urine strips.
Alok GuptaGUEST
For someone with time-restricted feeding, the kidney sizes actually become smaller.
Alok GuptaGUEST
The-- When they further evaluated these patients from the initial study where they started with calorie restriction, they found that the patients, uh, the, the experiment animals, their blood have high ketone levels, which is BHB, beta-hydroxybutyrate, the one which we commonly measure.
Alok GuptaGUEST
They also showed that the cystic areas in these experimental animals, both male and female, the, the amount of cystic area is significantly reduced.
Alok GuptaGUEST
And this is again a histology, um, showing the, um, the how the time-restricted eating improves the histology with much less number of cystic areas and more amount of healthy areas.
Alok GuptaGUEST
What they did was the young mice or rats, which are predisposed to develop the disease but not yet have the disease, the ketogenic diets actually prevented the development of the disease.
Alok GuptaGUEST
So prevention and reversal, which is largely unknown in my chronic kidney disease practice.
Alok GuptaGUEST
All the forms of dietary changes which induce ketosis prevented polycystic kidney disease, and BHB supplementation alone inhibited the progression of the CKD, um, uh, disease, PKD disease.
Alok GuptaGUEST
So these cystic cells are metabolically inflexible.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
It's because you're actually increasing the actual energy-producing components that are found within the cell.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
BHB, or beta-hydroxybutyrate, is what stimulates the production of something called BDNF.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
BHB is basically what your brain is burning during fasting.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
Your brain stops burning glucose, which is the main fuel normally, and it converts to burning essentially beta-hydroxybutyric acid.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
This BHB increases BDNF.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
BDNF is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and that's a chemical that protects the brain from oxidative damage.
Alan GoldhamerGUEST
And it prevents things like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Dave FeldmanHOST
It's good just for the heck of it.
Dave FeldmanHOST
Why not? So we test his ketones, BHB at 5.5.
Dave FeldmanHOST
So you have to imagine- Hey, he's in ketosis.
Dave FeldmanHOST
He's healthy.
Dave FeldmanHOST
He was just like amused by the fact that I was saying, well, there's no point.
Dave FeldmanHOST
There's no point in testing you on ketone levels.
Dave FeldmanHOST
Now, to be fair, I knew enough, and this is part of why I kept looking, I knew enough to know that the BHB of 5.5 actually probably wasn't DKA.
Dave FeldmanHOST
Not high enough.
MikeHOST
And we talked about it in the last show as well, but I just thought it was hilarious that once in a while, if that's the only ketone source you have, then you're taking 400 milligrams of caffeine down with it if you want two cans, so.
Marc LoblinerGUEST
You know what? So it's really crazy when you talk about the brain aspect of BHB, of ketones, is I was actually...
Marc LoblinerGUEST
I went, and I trained with a customer of ours, a guy who owns a brand who uses BHB, and he was telling me how his wife has these debilitating migraines.
Marc LoblinerGUEST
And sh- they're gone because she's taking BHB.
Marc LoblinerGUEST
So I sent him a bunch of these shots, five grams straight to the dome.
MikeHOST
Mm-hmm.
Marc LoblinerGUEST
She's tried everything.
Marc LoblinerGUEST
Doctors have tried everything.
speaker_2GUEST
That is the dual goal here.
speaker_2GUEST
When insulin falls, your liver starts breaking down fat and producing ketone bodies, primarily one called beta-hydroxybutyrate or BHB.
speaker_1HOST
BHB, okay.
speaker_2GUEST
And now your healthy brain and tissues can adapt beautifully to running on BHB.
speaker_2GUEST
Sure.
speaker_2GUEST
The prevailing theory behind metabolic therapy is that many cancer cells have mitochondrial defects.