ketones in urine 0.5 safe?

treehugnmama

so my doctor did blood and urine test. I was in fasted state and had exercised like he asked. my ketones were 0.5 in urine and it was flagged as hi? I've Google it and it is saying anything over 0.5 is high so now I'm a bit concerned.

any help appreciated.

Violet_Flux

My understanding is high ketone levels are only dangerous for type-1 diabetics and only in a certain situation which can lead to ketoacidosis. This is entirely different from dietary / nutritional ketosis, which is not dangerous or harmful.

FWIW the ketostix I measure with read up to 16 mmol/L and I have hit that level now and then, though usually I'm on the next one down, at 8 mmol/L.

medic2038

Steph_Maks wrote: »

My understanding is high ketone levels are only dangerous for type-1 diabetics and only in a certain situation which can lead to ketoacidosis. This is entirely different from dietary / nutritional ketosis, which is not dangerous or harmful.

FWIW the ketostix I measure with read up to 16 mmol/L and I have hit that level now and then, though usually I'm on the next one down, at 8 mmol/L.

Sometimes alcoholics can get into ketoacidosis too.

But yeah basically OP, if you're intent is to be in dietary ketosis, as long as you're not an IDDM you probably shouldn't have too much trouble.
Ketone production is throttled by insulin. So basically if you're getting too acidic, your body secretes insulin, and your glucagon goes down (thus mitigating ketone production).

Since people with T1D can't produce insulin the what happens is called a negative feedback loop. They have extremely high blood glucose (which is the main cause of acidosis), but none of their cells can use it because they can't produce insulin. Their cells start signalling that they need energy, so the body starts ketone production. Since there's no insulin, there's really no "off switch" for that either.
So basically it's a run away cascade of badness. That's basically DKA in a nutshell.

Our bodies are EXTREMELY sensitive to PH changes, and that can kill you pretty fast if it gets out of whack (organs start failing outside of normal PH ranges).

treehugnmama

thanks for the answers I do not drink but have fatty liver disease.

what is iddm?

thanks for the explanations very helpful.

Sunny_Bunny_

You're completely fine. Ketones don't become dangerous until they get above 10-15 AND you have high blood sugar.
Unless you're Type 1 Diabetic that will NEVER happen anyway so don't worry about it.
All it really means is that your doctor doesn't understand how ketones work...

treehugnmama

Dr didn't say it was an issue the blood lab flagged it. so I guess that means it's working

treehugnmama

yay wish I could test those more often happy to hear ketones are a good sign..ty