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KETONES - Legal doping?

Old 01-13-15, 02:54 PM
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KETONES - Legal doping?

Is this the new legal doping?

Ketones: Controversial new energy drink could be next big thing in cycling - Cycling Weekly
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Old 01-13-15, 04:48 PM
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Well, I know what I'm bringing with me on my next ride:

One bottle of water, and one bottle of acetone, straight up, neat! .
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Old 01-13-15, 04:51 PM
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I prefer drinking meth.
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Old 01-13-15, 06:17 PM
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5 hour energy shot drink.
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Old 01-13-15, 06:51 PM
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Stopped reading at "and a cost of around £2000 per litre."
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Old 01-13-15, 07:16 PM
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I'm not fully versed in chemistry of the aerobic metabolism, but, generally speaking, oxygen consumption (VO2) is the bottleneck. To get any sort of gains "for long-distance efforts in very fit individuals" from this sort of drink, it either has to raise maximum oxygen consumption (unlikely), or somehow mess with LT, or provide more work per unit of oxygen than carbohydrates. All "normal" macronutrients are worse than carbs (standard figures are, for carbs, 5.05 kcal/liter of O2, for fat, 4.73, for ethanol, 4.86, and for protein, 4.46). Meaning that you get to perform a bit less work while your cardiovascular system is working as hard, if you're burning anything other than carbs. Though something sufficiently weird like those ketones, if it's part oxidized compared to regular fat, could go over 5.05.
Putting the stuff to practical use would be tricky. For starters, the most common ketone body (acetoacetate) is unstable at room temperature and it needs to be "cooked" within hours before the event. And ketones in sufficient quantities to make any difference in a competitive event would metabolize into large quantities of acetone, which is, of course, quite toxic. I'd be interested to see how they deal with this. Maybe they use something synthetic that is more stable and less toxic than acetoacetate.

Last edited by hamster; 01-13-15 at 07:35 PM.
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Old 01-13-15, 07:19 PM
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Originally Posted by WhyFi
Stopped reading at "and a cost of around £2000 per litre."
For that much, you could pay for a coach, better equipment and get better the right way.
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Old 01-13-15, 07:34 PM
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Originally Posted by WhyFi
Stopped reading at "and a cost of around £2000 per litre."
I'm pretty sure that's either exaggeration / journalist fantasy or it's derived by dividing the output of their lab by combined salaries of all researchers. You can synthesize most sufficiently simple organic compounds for tens of dollars per pound as long as there's large scale demand. For example, you can get bulk pharmaceutical grade Tylenol (acetaminophen) or Advil (ibuprofen) for about $15/pound.
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Old 01-13-15, 07:44 PM
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isn't carb loading cheaper? pasta is not £2,000 per litre.
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Old 01-13-15, 07:58 PM
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These being the same ketones your body metabolizes once it goes into ketosis? The Atkins diet for cyclists?

I don't think the body can suddenly shift gears with the metabolitic processes but if I'm wrong, somebody please correct me.

I'll stick to LaraBars and a banana.
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Old 01-13-15, 08:07 PM
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Hamster man. I find this interesting as well. A check of Oxford labs turned up that the cited David Holdsworth is a post-graduate student in the lab of Prof Kieran Clarke. See www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/research/Clark-group Clark talks about ketones yielding 28% more energy upon combustion (oxidation) than carbohydrates. Also that she has tested the ketone diet that induces a mild ketosis has been tested in endurance atheletes - rowing and elite cyclists - as a blinded, placebo-controlled trial; however, she doesn't explicitly state any results.
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Old 01-13-15, 08:21 PM
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Here is link to the published paper. Acute nutritional ketosis: implications for exercise performance and metabolism
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Old 01-13-15, 08:44 PM
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Entertaining article by an MD who used himself as a guinea pig: My experience with exogenous ketones - The Eating Academy | Peter Attia, M.D. The Eating Academy | Peter Attia, M.D.
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Old 01-13-15, 09:23 PM
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Originally Posted by Gyrine
Aha. As I understand, they claim, roughly speaking, that ketones take precedence over blood glucose and they can be successful at muscle glycogen sparing even in situations where normal edible carbs fail. And they do mention that "The observed improvements in metabolic efficiency ... may translate to greater muscular work output for a given oxygen requirement during exercise" (the aforementioned 28%), though extrapolating from rat hearts to pro cyclists is a bit of a stretch. They work with a compound designed to metabolise into ketones in the bloodstream. One of the authors is a director of a startup that makes that compound.
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Old 01-13-15, 09:28 PM
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Hamster: I'm curious about your background; Do you work in the medical field?
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Old 01-13-15, 09:36 PM
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No, it's a hobby.
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Old 01-13-15, 09:38 PM
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Originally Posted by hamster
No, it's a hobby.
I guess you could say the same for me.
I completed an EMT-Basic course last year, and I am currently studying an Anatomy/Physiology book.
And coincidentally, I'm wading through the chapter on metabolism right now.
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Old 01-13-15, 09:39 PM
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Interesting blog by Peter Attia. It turns out he collaborates with Professor Kieran Clarke and his blog parallels the peer-reviewed paper published by Clarke. They both hint that the studies on elite cyclists will be positive and cause an upheaval on endurance sports.

The company that owns the intellectual property rights and that is conducting the stuies leading to commercialization is called TdeltaS, Ltd. Google it - they have a website.
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Old 01-13-15, 10:02 PM
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If this "takes", all endurance pro athletes will be forced to eat stuff that Dr. Attia describes by saying "the world’s worst scotch tastes like spring water compared to these things", by the spoonful, continuously while competing, pretty much the way we eat gels, in order to be competitive. And it seems likely that effects scale with dosage. You can get what looks like 6-8% improvement in work per unit of oxygen from a 15 g dose, but, logically, you'll get more from 30 g, etc. etc. till you're running 100% on ketones. And there's still the problem that this stuff gets metabolized into acetone. A single 15 g dose before a 20 min bike ride may not have any lasting effects, but try to eat it as you eat gels over the course of a 5 hour bike race, and that may be an altogether different story.

My guess is, if ketones really work as described and if/when they go widespread, food or not, they'll be classified as doping.
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Old 01-13-15, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by hamster
Aha. As I understand, they claim, roughly speaking, that ketones take precedence over blood glucose and they can be successful at muscle glycogen sparing even in situations where normal edible carbs fail. And they do mention that "The observed improvements in metabolic efficiency ... may translate to greater muscular work output for a given oxygen requirement during exercise" (the aforementioned 28%), though extrapolating from rat hearts to pro cyclists is a bit of a stretch. They work with a compound designed to metabolise into ketones in the bloodstream. One of the authors is a director of a startup that makes that compound.
Well, more than taking precedence as fuel (Peter Attia refers to ketones as "jet fuel") they apparently (read theoretically) preserve the endogenous intramuscular glycogen so that when the ketones run low or out, the glycogen can be used by the body - sprints, breakaways, etc. At first I dismissed the idea of the OP that their use could be labeled doping but now I'm not so sure. The derivativized ketones, allowing them to stay intact during transit through the body, are clearly artificial. Therefore taking these is tantamount to taking an orally bioavailable, performance enhancing drug. Hamster man? yes-no?
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Old 01-14-15, 05:55 AM
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As science goes, this is quite interesting, but what's the likelihood of a lethal overdose if this stuff were made readily available and marketed as a performance enhancer?

Riding a bike 30, 40, 50 mph is risky enough. Why anyone should think it's a good idea for participants to play additional risky games with their insides is beyond me. And really, when it comes to doping, that's what it comes down to: if a performance enhancer can't be recommended or endorsed for every participant, then it shouldn't be permitted for anyone.
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Old 01-14-15, 07:27 AM
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I bet that guy has some nasty BO after taking that stuff.
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Old 01-14-15, 09:06 AM
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You guys definitely recommend eating a high carb diet like durianrider right? Not a high fat diet based on slipping into ketosis. All I know is that an 80/10/10 high carb diet siper oxygenates your blood and allows your red blood cells to be free flowing. And fat sludges the blood up and doesn't allow for full oxygen saturation.
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Old 01-14-15, 10:21 AM
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Where is the drink? All of the articles about are from this time last year, and they all say "the drink will go on sale in the US later this year." Google turns up nothing of the sort. Did it ever go on sale? I want to read some real testimonials about this.
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Old 01-14-15, 10:54 AM
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Originally Posted by TMonk
Well, I know what I'm bringing with me on my next ride:

One bottle of water, and one bottle of acetone, straight up, neat! .
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