Nutritional Ketosis with Ketogenic Diets or Exogenous Ketones: Features, Convergence, and Divergence

This review compares nutritional ketosis produced by ketogenic diets with that produced by exogenous ketone supplements. It defines nutritional ketosis as blood beta-hydroxybutyrate of 0.5 mM or higher. Endogenous ketone body synthesis is amplified during fasting, starvation or ketogenic diets, while orally administered exogenous ketones rapidly elevate circulating ketone bodies and produce a similar but far from identical metabolic state. The authors state that nutritional ketosis has a number of convergent features regardless of how it is induced, and also important differences.