Are ketone esters or exogenous ketones these magic drinks that make you melt fat off your body? The answer is no. These are calorie-containing substances. If you have an energy surplus or a calorie surplus, ketones aren't some magic thing that break the second law of thermodynamics that [makes calories disappear]. But, that doesn't say that there aren't appetite-controlling effects that are second-order from just the calories themselves.

What is a ketone salt? It's simply beta-hydroxybutyrate bound to a mineral—a salt. A lot of common ketone salts are sodium, magnesium, calcium ... Pros: relatively cheap, relatively available. [One] potential con is that if you actually look at the percentage of salt versus beta-hydroxybutyrate, you're eating a lot of mineral ... If you look at the label, oftentimes you're seeing like 200% of your daily recommended value for salt.

Biology, for better or for worse, has been a study of snapshots, meaning that when I take a finger prick of my beta-hydroxybutyrate or when I take a finger prick of my glucose, you get a snapshot in time of what my metabolic state looks like, but what's actually happening is that there's a flux or a turnover of all these metabolic states happening all at the same time, and we just don't have the technical measurement tools to actually measure flux really easily.

The simultaneous elevation of blood ketones and blood glucose is something I experimented with a few times when I was doing obstacle course racing, and it is like rocket fuel.

It does look like a lot of the longevity reasons why people do intermittent fasting are doubled down through exogenous ketones.