Ketone Bodies and Exercise Performance: The Next Magic Bullet or Merely Hype?

This review discusses ketone bodies and exercise performance. It notes that a ketogenic diet requires about 4 days of high fat, low carbohydrate intake to induce nutritional ketosis and may impair exercise performance by reducing the capacity to use carbohydrate. It also describes ketone salts and esters as ways to raise ketone availability rapidly, and states that how ketone bodies regulate skeletal muscle energetics and substrate metabolism during prolonged endurance exercise is not yet known.