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Showing posts with label Ketoforce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ketoforce. Show all posts

Tuesday 17 October 2023

Takeaways from Thinking Autism 2023


I did present at the Thinking Autism 2023 conference in London recently.  I was last there in 2019 and there were many familiar faces.

Emotions were very much on show - joy, desperation, bewilderment, hope, fear, frustration and more.

The United Kingdom is amongst the worst countries in the world if you want to treat autism.  Even the idea of treating autism can get you into trouble. For severe autism it is much better to say treating ID (intellectual disability) – what sane person could object to that?

My takeaways are very specific to me, but here they are anyway.

 

So many doctors!

This year I was approached by many doctors who have children with ASD.  Among them were GPs, pediatricians, a neurologist, and a psychiatrist.

When you understand the basis of autism it is not surprising that so many doctors have kids with autism, particularly doctors married to a doctor.

 

Fertility treatment increasing the risk of autism

I did mention in my book the link between difficulty conceiving and having children with autism. Mothers who have had miscarriages are at risk of having a child with autism and children produced via IVF therapy have an elevated chance of autism.

One of the speakers at the conference, who uses diet as a therapy, told us that 30-40% of her patients where conceived by IVF therapy.  Wow – I thought. They are mainly children with milder autism, only 10% of her patients have severe autism.

 

From struggling to get on IVIG to how to come off it

Many parents struggle to get onto IVIG therapy for their child.  It is very expensive and, being an intravenous therapy, it is not so easy to administer to a child with severe autism.

Having finally got on IVIG therapy and responded well to it, how do ever wean the child off it, without losing all those gains?

This was a side issue arising from the conference and is an issue to some other readers of this blog.

What is very interesting is the potential to give IVIG therapy just once to very young children who developed normally but then suffer a regression into “autism.”  It seems to work for some. You might get it in Russia, but don’t bother asking in the UK.

 

My son is 14, I have tried everything else now I am ready for pills

Some people do respond well enough to dietary modification and OTC supplements, but more severe autism likely needs pharmaceuticals. For one mother at the conference she had come to this conclusion.  It is never too late to start to treat severe autism. Good luck to her!

 

Never give up

Never give up was the last point on my talk.

One mother at the conference was a very good example. She had finally had her twins examined at the UK’s top children’s hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).  They have had MRIs, lumbar punctures to get spinal fluid samples and they have had genetic testing.  That is a triumph in the UK health system.

As she told us, she had to play the cancer card. She told her doctors “why do you go to such great lengths to save my life from cancer and yet do nothing for my twin boys with severe autism?”

Now one has a diagnosis of cerebral folate deficiency and one has a mutation is DISC1, a schizophrenia gene already covered, with therapy ideas, in my blog.  High dopamine in spinal fluid was only to be expected - it is a feature of schizophrenia. Light is at the end of the tunnel.  This mother was also very helpful to other mothers present.

 

School reporting on parent treating autism

I was disappointed to hear that a school had reported one mother for treating her child’s autism.

 

Ketones really do benefit some!

I did write a lot about the multiple possible benefits of ketones/BHB in autism.

The week before the conference one mother wrote to tell me that both she and her child with autism respond well to HVMN Ketone-IQ.

I knew our doctor reader Agnieska was a big fan of the BHB ester product Ketoforce, which seems to have disappeared during Covid.

At the conference a Spanish psychiatrist was listing the therapies in my blog that have helped his son and they included NAC, Bumetanide and BHB.

There are several new ketone products based on diol ketone esters, like HVMN Ketone-IQ.

Our reader Daniel mentioned very recently that he is using a product called DeltaG, a proprietary blend of diol ketone esters. HVMN Ketone-IQ is a pure diol ketone ester, while DeltaG is a proprietary blend of diol ketone esters.

The active ingredient in Ketone-IQ is R-1,3 Butanediol, also referred to as R-1,3-Butylene glycol, which maintains FDA GRAS status as a flavor molecule.

 

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=173.220

 

1,3-Butylene glycol (1,3-butanediol) may be safely used in food in accordance with the following prescribed conditions:

(a) The substance meets the following specifications:

(1) 1,3-Butylene glycol content: Not less than 99 percent.

(2) Specific gravity at 20/20 deg.C: 1.004 to 1.006.

(3) Distillation range: 200deg.-215 deg.C.

(b) It is used in the minimum amount required to perform its intended effect.

(c) It is used as a solvent for natural and synthetic flavoring substances except where standards of identity issued under section 401 of the act preclude such use.

 

This raw ingredient is very cheap.

Once it is packaged up as a supplement, it becomes very expensive.

As Agnieszka mentioned on the conference sidelines, you do have to look at the ingredients. In HVMN Ketone-IQ there is potassium benzoate as the preservative.  Potassium benzoate is a DAO inhibitor. DAO, or diamine oxidase, is an enzyme that breaks down histamine, a compound that can cause a variety of symptoms in histamine-sensitive people, such as headache, flushing, hives, and diarrhea.

 

“If my son can take the bus aged 20, I’d be happy”

One doctor mother showed me a video of her untreated young son with severe autism.  I told her how I have treated my son since 2012 and what the result has been. He passed his high school exams (GCSEs) in maths, science, geography, and English.  Now he has learnt how to travel independently from home by bus.  Time for those pills.






Thursday 11 April 2019

Autism Polypill Version 5










Agnieszka's KetoForce and C8 are new additions, last time it was Tyler's Agmatine as additions to the Full Polypill

I recently updated my autism Polypill. It is now the fifth version, so it is becoming ever more personalized to one specific case of autism.  I added caprylic acid C8 and KetoForce Beta Hydroxybutyrate.
The full Polypill version 5 is here:


I do feel that I am getting near the final version. I already am pretty sure what is going to be added in the sixth version. There are one or two potentially clever ideas in this blog that I have not yet developed.
After my first year of autism research my doctor mother thought the result was good enough to stop, but I persevered and some further improvement did come. She was supportive of the concept but rather surprised it was possible. I think I have now achieved most of what is possible, which took an additional five years.
Having recently been reviewing the expected prognosis in longitudinal autism studies, including the one up to 22 years of age by Catherine Lord in the US, I think the result speaks for itself. In long term studies the remarkable improvement that rarely does occur, takes place by the age of eight. Verbal skills at the age of two is the best predictor of outcome at 19 years old.  I only started with my Polypill at the age of nine, when we were five years into trying to teach prepositions and maths was at the level of struggling with single digit addition and subtraction. Today at 15 years old, maths is at the same level as neurotypical 13-year-old classmates; so, we can say his maths age is 13.
I did suggest years ago to the French Bumetanide researchers that they measure IQ to show the impact of their therapy.
I think that in severe autism, and also Down Syndrome, huge strides forward are possible just by raising IQ.  We saw from the 15-year French study that the entire lower group, representing 80% of the total, had an IQ far less than 70 when they age out of school. An IQ of 70 is the threshold for MR/ID and affects 2.3% of the population.  Many of those French had IQs less than 40. 
Many parents do not like the term Mental Retardation (MR), so they made a nicer term Intellectual Disability (ID), which to me sounds like you might struggle playing chess, rather than dressing yourself and tying shoelaces.
Much MR/ID clearly is treatable.  That makes what is left of autism much easier to deal with. It makes the impact of any expensive 1:1 therapy much more substantial and therefore cost effective.
Recall we also have 81 other types of MR/ID that have been identified and are treatable.


As part of another project, I recently updated an old chart from this blog that shows the change in my autism index over time, including 6 years of the Polypill. I started treatment with Bumetanide on 17 December 2012. That was the sharp drop in the black line, followed rapidly by NAC and Atorvastatin. 


The big spike in the black line is the effect of the summertime allergy “stopping” the cognitive effect of bumetanide and producing the self-injurious behaviour of the same kind as the first big spike in the orange line.
The orange line after December 2012 is my forecast of what would happen, including a spike in bad behaviors likely to be triggered by puberty.
The spike in the black line at 13.5 years was a PANS-like episode that only lasted a couple of weeks, and was immediately treated using prednisone.
Heading towards 16 years old, Monty is still above the blue area, which we could call the “nerd cloud”. This is where you will find all those very mildly autistic, fully verbal people that now receive a medical or educational diagnosis of autism. Back in 1970s, 80s and 90s these were the nerdy kids at your school, who generally got by without any medical diagnosis/label. A small percentage will subsequently have attempted suicide.
On my chart typical development is not zero on the autism scale.
What is “normal” changes, typical kids develop their sense of “cool” group behavior before puberty and this continue until they become parents or just busy and fully employed. Then cool gradually fades and by 30 years old a socially awkward Aspie type really is not so different from a Dad who is juggling his job, commuting and his family obligations. There is no time to be cool.
I think around 18 is the peak difference between an NT young person and an Aspie.  Once the Aspie gets to College/University and meets more fellow Aspies life should get much better.  Find a job in a University or NASA and you will do just fine.
My therapy goal is just to keep heading towards zero on my scale. Entering the nerd cloud would be a great success; all that effort to reach the point many people with today's "autism" start from!
The IQ difference is already overcome. If you can do algebra, your IQ is way above 70.
Optimizing adaptive behaviour is the remaining goal. As the French longitudinal study and Catherine Lord from Cornell University highlighted in their studies, being fully verbal is a big part of enhancing adaptive behavior.  If you can be chatty, many aspects of life and functioning automatically get much easier.
So, in Monty’s case the emphasis has to be on expressive verbal communication, which is his weak point.
Fortunately, the additions in version 5 of the Polypill (Caprylic acid C8 and KetoForce BHB) and the expected additions in Version 6 will target this area. 
I did also write about critical periods and sensitive periods in the treatment of autism. It is clear that while it is never too late to start therapy, the sooner you start the bigger the effect will be. This is another reason why I doubt I will ever get to Version 10 - the clock is ticking.
Time is indeed a great healer, so even just Version 5 for another five years should continue to help Monty close the gap with typical people.
At another visit to the dentist last week when Monty had anaesthetic in his rear lower jaw, which apparently is the most difficult for a dentist treating a person with autism, the dentist was visibly relieved “it was exactly as you said it would be … he was better than my typical patients”.  That is the result of Polypills version 1 to 4 from 2012 to 2119; it is not down to parenting as the dentist believes. We did practise with a syringe and a drill at home, but it really was not needed. Monty understands why the process is necessary and what the steps involved are and so he is happy to sit back and open wide. Ten years ago this was not the case.

According to Catherine Lord at Cornell, based on her longitudinal studies from diagnosis up to adulthood, verbal skills at the age of 2 are the best predictor of outcome at 19 years old. Monty's verbal skills at the age of 2 were zero.

Unfortunately over 60% of the children she followed from 2 years old end up with a very poor outcome in adulthood - severe MR/ID, the adaptive skills of a four year old  and drugged up on psychotropic meds.  As in the 15 year long French longitudinal study of autism we looked at, the measured IQ falls over time. Anyone still think severe autism should not be treated? Perhaps they need their heads examining?

The optimal group of 10% do well, with an IQ shooting up to 111 (average IQ for typical people is 100) and OK with an adaptive functional age of 101 months (8.5 years old). Of them, 63% had a job and the great majority were not on psychotropic meds.  

It appears that in Lovaas' flawed ABA research he selected the kids that completed his trial from this Optimal 10% group. So yes, 50% did great, but they were already on track to do pretty well.  We learned from Dr Siegel that he weeded out the less able kids who did not respond to his therapy during the trial itself. You might think that all his research should now be rescinded.




LA ASD = less able ASD  (62% of the group) have IQ less than 70<70 div="">
MA ASD = more able ASD (38% of the group) with a subset called Optimal = the top 10%








Source: Catherine Lord's Presentation at UC Davis

I always wondered why American Psychiatrists decided to keep relaxing the boundaries of autism. There was no rational reason to do it, because it makes all the data incompatible and so comparisons meaningless. One good reason would be to hide the appalling outcomes of severe autism (DSM3 autism, Strictly Defined Autism etc), by adding more and more much milder autism the overall outcome looks quite acceptable.
Dr Lord is a psychologist and she comments in her presentation that today the prognosis results would look much better, as if that is a good thing. Being of logical engineer origin, I would counter that this is a nonsense. The results today would be exactly the same for those kind of kids; just that a sample in 2019 of 200 kids with newly diagnosed autism would include 100 who would not have been given a diagnosis 25 years ago when Dr Lord started her study. Nobody would have even sent those fully verbal quirky two year olds for evaluation.

For the final word on prognosis, we might recall from this earlier post

that 

"Autistic adults with a learning disability were found to die more than 30 years before non-autistic people."

Time to customize your personalized medical therapy for autism?  If your child was fully verbal at two years old, then you might not need to bother.

Conclusion
My conclusion is that after 480 posts, this blog is now giving a fairly complete picture of autism. The features provided by Blogger/Google make it hard to navigate this blog and the very useful index by label is no longer available. Only a few people have read the entire blog.
It could be reorganized as follows.
  • Prevalence of the many Autisms
  • Prognosis
  • Evidence from clinical trials and case studies that shows improvement is genuinely possible and so it is worth your while to commit serious time to the process
  • Lots of science blah blah 
  • Precision medicine leading to a personalized therapy 
Unfortunately the science blah blah does get very detailed and does lose many people.  Biology is not complicated like math, there is just an awful lot of it and it remains only partially understood, so it changes.  Most people can follow the science, if they are willing to spend enough time, but you need to know that genuine improvement is indeed possible.  Some people are lucky and find their type of autism is similar to someone else's who has already found an effective therapy.
At some point I will get someone to write the java script to make a better index to the blog, so at least I can find things. 
Hopefully Version 6 of the Polpill will include two steps forward.



Tuesday 8 January 2019

BHB + C8 in Autism, a Work-in-Progress



The potential benefit of the ketone BHB in autism was covered extensively in earlier posts.  It looks like different people may benefit for entirely different reasons and some may not benefit at all. 

Some MCT oils, taken as precursors to BHB, can actually make people worse.


Measuring ketones and glucose in blood


Click for a summary of the previous posts.

I know that some readers of this blog have found that BHB/C8 does indeed provide a benefit in their specific type of autism.  The benefit seems to vary, but given all the biological modes of action of the ketone BHB that is not surprising.  Increased speech is a frequently noted benefit.
My initial combination of Ketoforce plus C8 continues to be effective.
Substituting a cheaper MCT oil containing both C8 and C10 (Bulletproof XCT oil), was less effective and after a matter of weeks produced a negative effect. It appears that C10, after a while, can produce mild anxiety and agitation in some people. In our case this goes away when stopping the C8+C10 MCT oil and then reappears restarting it.
When it comes to C8, it appears that not all food grade 98% C8 products are actually what they claim to be. This is a recurring theme with all supplements, they lack the quality control you get with pharmaceuticals.
Our reader Yi did at one point raise the issue of BHB causing diuresis. We also experienced this and much more so with the “mixed” C8+C10 MCT oil, rather than the “pure” C8.
The combination of increased diuresis and all the sodium, magnesium, potassium in the BHB salts may very well create an issue with electrolyte levels. Potassium does seem to be the most critical one to monitor.
Different BHB products contain very different amounts of sodium, magnesium, potassium and so it is unwise to simply substitute one for another.
Our reader Agnieszka did experiment with different BHB products and found that, based on urine testing, Ketoforce was the most effective. I also think this is likely the best choice.  Ideally you would measure BHB in blood and devices are available (see above photo).
For people living in Europe, BHB products have fallen foul of EU legislation that requires new supplements to be approved before they can be sold in the European Union. As BHB is a recently introduced supplement, it cannot legally be sold in the EU until someone pays for it to be approved. This means that in EU countries that strictly apply the rules, like the UK, you cannot buy BHB, but in other EU countries you still can.
The same legal status regarding BHB in the EU also applies to Agmatine.
Another oddity is that Melatonin is banned as a supplement in the UK, but not other EU countries; it is a very popular supplement in North America.




Thursday 26 July 2018

Promoting Spontaneous Speech in Autism – Behavioral Therapies and/or BHB?


One key issue for most people with more severe autism (DSM5 level 3, any DSM3, or just SDA – Strictly Defined Autism) is getting them to fully use their capacity to communicate.
Many such people do learn to talk, but often this is a very matter of fact kind of speech, that is limited to answering questions and making requests.
Often the limiting factor is not vocabulary, grammar or vocalization. Many can put ideas in words on paper, they can sing and read aloud; but something is lacking when it comes to conversation.
You can use behavioral therapy (like Verbal Behavior, VB) and some of the more relevant parts of speech therapy to encourage more extensive speech, but it is a real slog. When you spend less time on 1:1 “speech training”, in order to develop academic school work, you end up with less speech.
I was discussing this with Monty’s assistants, the need to take a step back and refocus on speech as a skill, in addition to regular school work.  It is good to be able to master algebra, but in any social situation communication remains number one.
I have long wondered if it is a behavioural problem, a structural brain problem or a treatable biological problem. I do see parallels with how typical people speak foreign languages. For example, if I was on a train in Germany and somebody wanted to talk to me in German, I would keep my answers short and simple; I would not be trying to keep the conversation going. My German is very rusty, but I can read it aloud and yes, I could sing in it. I would not make small talk in German.
I do consider people like Monty, now aged 15 with autism, not to have a first language; silence is their first language and their mother tongue is like a second language. Some readers of this blog are exceptions, but most people are pretty weak in their second language. For them it never becomes intuitive, you have to painfully learn what preposition takes what case and how to decline nouns and conjugate verbs. You can make a strong case that people who do not begin to speak until 4 years old have missed a critical window in how the brain develops and so when language does slowly begin to come, it can never become truly fluent, a bit like my German.
I do have a broader interest in how you acquire language. Monty's big brother is bilingual and also pretty fluent in Russian and German and chatty in French. This all came with minimal effort, but being exposed from birth to two languages and then learning more languages in the conventional way.  
Many readers of autism forums ask about what pill can you take to promote speech. I always thought this was rather wishful thinking, in that you cannot target such a specific aspect of someone’s autism. Just like there may be no magic pill for algebra.

Writing before talking?
One idea I had to promote more prolonged “conversation” was to first have Monty write about the subject.  I agreed with Monty’s assistants one new exercise, which is to have him write a daily diary of his day and then later on have him retell the day’s events, but without reference to the diary.
It does indeed work, having written about the subject, when later asked to talk about it, there is a much longer and more detailed conversation.
No pills required.

The Ketone BHB
The reason for all the recent posts in this blog about ketones and autism is that perhaps there actually is a “pill” you can take to promote speech.
Our reader Agnieszka in Poland has been experimenting with ketones for some time and since her son responds to most of the things in Monty’s PolyPill, I assume that there is a good chance that anything new that works for her son might also work for Monty.
One area that the ketone BHB seems to help in Agnieszka’s case is promoting speech and BHB does indeed have the very same effect in Monty.
One effect of sulforaphane/broccoli was increased verbalization. If your child is four years old, increased verbalization would be something to celebrate, but by 15 years old you want relevant speech (for some people sulforaphane does indeed produce increased relevant speech).  Very encouragingly, BHB seems to deliver an increase in intelligent, relevant, spontaneous speech. These are things that Monty could write but would not say, unprompted.
There are big gaps in the scientific data about ketone supplements in humans. These supplements are only widely available in North America, even though it looks like most commercial products are repackaged from Chinese bulk chemical producers.
It appears that the most effective therapy is a combination of a precursor to ketones (C8) and a salt of the BHB ketone (Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium or Potassium Beta-Hydroxybutyrate).
According to one Chinese bulk producer, the Calcium salt of BHB is not very effective, they recommend Sodium and/or Magnesium.
By using a salt of BHB, you are going to consume significant amounts of sodium, calcium, magnesium or potassium. This may be unwise for some people.
The objective is to raise the amount of BHB in your bloodstream.
You can measure BHB in urine inexpensively, but the more reliable blood testing equipment is more expensive.
The study below evaluated one widely available commercial supplement:- 


Figure 1b: mean, standard deviation of D-βHB (mmol/L) level in serum of all subjects () within a time period of 5.5 h after intake of βHB salt mixture (0.5 g/kg BW). 

The supplement used was Ketosports KetoCaNa Orange.
In fact the dose of Ca/Na Betahydroxybutyrate was very high, 0.5g per Kg. In the case of a typical adult that might be 40g per day.
That would contain:-

·      23g of BHB

·      2.6g of sodium

·      2.3g of calcium

That is quite a lot of sodium and calcium.
Some products are exclusively Potassium Betahydroxybutyrate, in those for each 23g of BHB you would get 8,700 mg of potassium, which is way too much to take at once. I am amazed it has not been banned.
When it comes to data on the use of C8 MCT oil in humans to produce BHB, we have the following study. The chart they produced is the total of BHB and another ketone, acetoacetate (AcAc), but we can extract the data on BHB itself. 


Results: C8 was the most ketogenic test oil with a day-long mean ± SEM of +295 ± 155 µmol/L above the CTL. C8 alone induced the highest plasma ketones expressed as the areas under the curve (AUCs) for 0–4 and 4–8 h (780 ± 426 µmol h/L and 1876 ± 772 µmol h/L, respectively); these values were 813% and 870% higher than CTL values (P < 0.01). CO plasma ketones peaked at +200 µmol/L, or 25% of the C8 ketone peak. The acetoacetate-to-β-HB ratio increased 56% more after CO than after C8 after both doses.

Conclusions: In healthy adults, C8 alone had the highest net ketogenic effect over 8 h, but induced only half the increase in the acetoacetate-to-β-HB ratio compared with CO. Optimizing the type of MCT may help in developing ketogenic supplements designed to counteract deteriorating brain glucose uptake associated with aging. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT 02679222.




Plasma concentration and summed daily means (far right) during the metabolic study days for total ketones (β-HB and AcAc) obtained without an added test oil (CTL; ●) or after taking two 20-mL doses of CO alone (), C10 alone (□), medium-chain TGs (C8-C10; ), or C8 alone (). The open arrow indicates when the breakfast plus test oil was consumed; the solid arrow indicates when the test oil alone was consumed without an accompanying meal at midday. Data for metabolic study days on which CO+C8-C10 and CO+C8 were tested are not shown here for clarity, but their AUC data are shown in Figure 2. Values are means ± SEMs; n = 9/point. *Different from CTL, P < 0.05. AcAc, acetoacetate; CO, coconut oil; CTL, control; C8, tricaprylin; C10, tricaprin; β-HB, β-hydroxybutyrate. 

Our 2-dose test protocol (breakfast and midday) generated 2 peaks of plasma total ketones throughout 8 h, with the second dose inducing 3.5 and 2.4 times higher ketones with C8 than with CO, respectively. The first dose taken with a meal would be a more typical pattern but resulted in less ketosis that without a meal. One limitation of this study design is that the metabolic study period was only 8 h. A longer-term study lasting several weeks to months would be useful to assess the impact of regular MCT supplementation on ketone metabolism.

In summary, C8 was the most ketogenic MCT tested in this acute 8-h study and its ketogenic effect was significantly higher in the absence of an accompanying meal. Despite a low net ketogenic effect, CO may still be of interest because of its effect on plasma acetoacetate-to-β-HB ratio. With the help of positron emission tomographic imaging and the ketone tracer 11C-acetoacetate (2, 18, 20), it is now possible to investigate the impact on tissue ketone uptake of various ketogenic interventions.



Areas Under the Curve = AUC 

Plasma concentration and summed means of 0- to 4-h and 4- to 8-h AUCs for plasma total ketones (i.e., AcAc and β-HB combined) (A) and for the mean AcAc-to-β-HB ratio (B). Bars represent no test oil consumed (CTL) or values after taking 2 doses of CO alone, C10 alone, medium-chain TGs (C8-C10), C8 alone, CO+C8-C10 (50:50), or CO+C8 (50:50). Values are means ± SEMs; n = 9. The AUC for 0–4 h was significantly different from the AUC for 4–8 h under all conditions. Labeled means without a common letter differ (a < b < c < d < e and A < B < C < D < E), P < 0.05. AcAc, acetoacetate; CO, coconut oil; CTL, control; C8, tricaprylin; C10, tricaprin; β-HB, β-hydroxybutyrate.

If we assume AcAc/BHB from C8 oil is 0.8 and that taking C8 without foode gives a total peak ketone (AcAc + BHB) of 0.5 mmol/L in blood. That implies we can approximate peak BHB as 0.28 mmol/L and peak AcAc as 0.22 mmol/L.
The jumbo dose of 23g of BHB produced peak BHB of 0.6 mmol/L in adults.
If the BHB level in blood is linearly related to the dose of BHB supplement, the we might assume that 15ml of Ketoforce produces 0.15 mmol/L (3.9*1.5/23*0.6).
If the Chinese are right that calcium BHB is not effective, then 15ml of Ketoforce likely produces a bit more than 0.15mmol/L., since it contains sodium BHB and potassium BHB.
So we might assume that my 20ml of C8 and 15ml of Ketoforce would produce  a peak BHB in the bloodstream of about 0.5 mmol in a 55kg boy and that slightly more is coming from the C8 than the BHB salt.
As you can see from the chart 0.5 is not very much and just at the lower edge of nutritional ketosis. With supplementation 0.5 is the peak level; it will rapidly fall back to the starting level.


So via supplementation we have a brief period of mild nutritional ketosis.

Anyone who has done their homework on Ketones will have come across Dominic D’Agostino.  He is a researcher with a big interest in ketones. He has published interesting research and has his own blog on the subject.

I saw his advice that suggested starting with 10ml of C8 and 10ml of KetoForce.
The producer suggests 30ml a day of Ketoforce in adults.
10 ml of Ketoforce contains
·      3.9 g of BHB

·      533 mg of Potassium

·      533 mg of Sodium

Even 500mg of potassium is going increase potassium levels in your blood.
If you happen to be taking bumetanide for autism, you will be losing potassium and likely taking a potassium supplement. Depending on your bumetanide dosage and potassium supplement, you may well be able to make some adjustments and cope with 10 ml of Ketoforce. 

Speech and C8/Ketoforce Dosage
Our reader Agnieszka was very scientific and tried different BHB supplements and measured  BHB in urine. She found Ketoforce the most effective at producing BHB in urine; speech was one big area of improvement, but not the only one.
I took the advice of Dr D’Agostino, the ketone guru, and combined Ketoforce with C8 in my experiment.
Starting with 10ml of C8 and 10ml Ketoforce, it did produce a marginal change in Monty, but increasing to 20ml of C8 and 15ml of Ketoforce produced a clear increase in spontaneous speech.

Work in progress
Clearly this is a work in progress. Ideally I would want to get all the BHB from C8, since then I do not need to worry about sodium and potassium.
Ketoforce is pretty expensive in the US and very expensive in Europe. C8 is not cheap, but much more reasonable.
Other MCT oils and coconut oil may be cheaper, but are very much less potent, so C8 is the most cost effective MCT oil to produce the ketone BHB.
A naturopathic physician in the US, called Dr Bruce Fife, has written extensively about “reversing autism” with coconut oil; that kind of language will make many people wary. He does suggest the mode of action is calming microglia, which is something BHB should be doing. Regular coconut oil will produce BHB, but you would have to eat a great deal of it.  Coconut oil it is not cheap and so it is more cost effective to use C8 oil. The effect of coconut oil (CO) was shown earlier on in this post, in the above line graph, where the triangle represents coconut oil.
Coconut oil, counter intuitively, actually lowers your blood cholesterol, so it actually is a healthy oil, but if it is the ketone BHB you are after, it does not look the best choice.
It is possible that coconut oil does something clever that is unrelated to BHB.

Underlying Mode of Action
By investigating all the modes of action of BHB, this may lead to a more effective therapy. BHB is a signalling molecule and if you know which of its many effects is the key one, you may find an alternative signalling molecule that gives a more potent result.
I have a good effect from C8/Ketoforce, but I would like more of the same; but without the full ketogenic diet and not causing a problem with excess sodium, potassium, calcium or magnesium.

In the coming posts we will look into BHB's other modes of action. It will get quite interesting and we will see how one might even treat psoriasis and Multiple Sclerosis with BHB, because it is an activator of the niacin receptor HCA2. There is a potent HCA2 agonist drug, dimethyl fumarate.