Research

Hormonal

Augmenting a hypocaloric ketogenic diet with exogenous ketone salts does not improve body composition outcomes (weight loss, fat loss, or lean mass preservation) compared to a ketogenic diet alone.

If you are doing a ketogenic diet for weight loss, adding exogenous ketone salts will not help you lose more fat or keep more muscle compared to doing the diet without them. The diet itself is the driver of body composition changes. You can save money by skipping the ketone salts.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Energy-matched hypocaloric ketogenic diets favorably affected body composition but were not further impacted by administration of an exogenous BHB-salt that augmented ketosis.
Alex Buga et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2021

Why this rating

Randomized, double-blind, controlled-feeding study with objective imaging (DXA/MRI), but short duration (6 weeks) and small sample size (n=25 completers).

Source

The Effects of a 6-Week Controlled, Hypocaloric Ketogenic Diet, With and Without Exogenous Ketone Salts, on Body Composition Responses

Alex Buga et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2021

DOI 10.3389/fnut.2021.618520

rct · n=37Cited 36×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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