People with type 2 diabetes can improve the health of their heart by drinking ketones, a new study has suggested.
For the first time, researchers from the University of Plymouth have given individuals with type 2 diabetes a drink with ketone esters – supplements that increase the number of ketones in your blood.
Ketosis is a metabolic state when your body uses fat for fuel instead of glucose.
First author Dr Maria Perissiou said: “It’s still early days, but these results are promising. We saw an improvement in cardiac efficiency after the participants had the drink with ketones, compared to a placebo drink.”
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A total of 13 people took part in the study by consuming a drink with ketones, followed by a placebo drink more than a week later.
The researchers monitored the participant’s heart function 30 minutes later with an ultrasound, looking at their vessels and blood flow.
Dr Perissiou explained: “In all 13 of the participants, their hearts were working more efficiently after the ketone drink at rest and during moderate intensity exercise, compared to the placebo drink.
“I’m feeling very positive about the results, but more research is needed because we only assessed participants on the day, which means we have no idea what the chronic impact of drinking ketones would be.”
She added: “The effect of ketones on heart health is a serendipitous finding. It’s only really by chance that we’ve been able to establish this connection after seeing an improvement in cardiovascular health of people being treated for diabetes with a drug called sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i).”
People with type 2 diabetes tend to use free fatty acids rather than glucose because their bodies struggle to break down glucose into energy because of insulin resistance.
Dr Perissiou said: “For people with diabetes, glucose can stay in the bloodstream and act like rust – destroying the vessels gradually. And for those with type 2 diabetes, their hearts are using fatty acids and gradually working harder and harder, which means they’re at risk of dying from different cardiovascular diseases.
“The drug SGLT2i was used to lower glucose in patients with diabetes and longitudinal studies were showing that it was inadvertently protecting the heart.”
She concluded: “The hypothesis was that the drug induces ketosis and the heart was using ketones, which improved heart health, but the evidence for this was limited so our research set out to prove the connection.”
Read more in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
