Ketone Bodies Breakdown

This process supplies energy under circumstances such as fasting or caloric restriction to certain organs particularly the brain heart and skeletal muscle insufficient gluconeogenesis can cause hypoglycemia and excessive production of ketone bodies.

Ketone bodies breakdown. Other fetal tissue types known to oxidize ketone bodies are kidney heart liver and placenta. Acetone a compound created through the breakdown of acetoacetate as an alternative energy source to glucose these ketones can also satisfy our body s energy requirements. Ketones chemically known as ketone bodies are byproducts of the breakdown of fatty acids. Ketogenesis is the biochemical process through which organisms produce ketone bodies through breakdown of fatty acids and ketogenic amino acids.

135 136 some tissues are even known to use ketone bodies as substrates for fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis as has been shown in the rat brain liver placenta and lung after administration of 14 c β hydroxybutyrate to pregnant animals in vivo. Acetone is a volatile and reactive substance. Low carbohydrate diet and ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are the water soluble molecules acetoacetate beta hydroxybutyrate and the spontaneous breakdown product of acetoacetate acetone containing the ketone group that are produced by the liver from fatty acids during periods of low food intake carbohydrate restrictive diets starvation prolonged intense exercise alcoholism or in untreated or inadequately treated type 1.

This occurs overnight and during dieting or fasting. Ketone bodies can increase almost 25 times the typical level during a two week fast which helps minimize muscle protein breakdown and maintain blood glucose levels. In fact our team recently published a review on the anticatabolic effect of ketone bodies in skeletal muscle 1. The breakdown of fat for fuel and the creation of ketones is a normal process for everyone.

There are three major types of ketone body. However unlike glucose ketone bodies have no impact on blood sugar or insulin levels. They are made in the liver from the breakdown of fats. Ketones and ketoacids are alternative fuels for the body that are made when glucose is in short supply.

When it begins to build up in the blood it can lower the ph of the blood a condition called acidosis. When this happens acetone is formed from the spontaneous breakdown of the other ketone bodies in the blood. 137 the activity of ketone body metabolizing. In animal experiments acetone has greater antiepileptic potency than the two other ketone bodies and as illustrated here also than the metabolites formed in its own breakdown.

In the experiment shown here 60 the gaba a receptor antagonist pentylenetetrazole was used to induce epileptic seizures.