Plasma β‐hydroxybutyrate concentrations in young adult females after a high‐fat meal under normoxaemia, intermittent hypoxaemia and continuous hypoxaemia: An exploratory analysis

Description

Nicholas Goulet and colleagues measured how breathing low-oxygen air changes ketone levels after a fatty meal in young women, in a 2026 exploratory crossover experiment. Twelve women averaging 21 years old ate a high-fat meal providing a third of their daily energy. They then spent six hours either in normal air or in intermittent hypoxia, fifteen induced desaturation cycles per hour down to about 85 percent saturation. Eight of them later repeated the day under continuous hypoxia.

The main ketone behaved the same under normal and intermittent conditions but rose under continuous hypoxia. At six hours it averaged 0.247 millimoles per liter against 0.176 in normal air and 0.163 in the intermittent arm, differences the statistics backed. The authors read the pattern as continuous low oxygen, the altitude pattern, specifically loosening the liver's suppression of ketone production after eating. Intermittent apnea-style exposure does not reproduce it, in this small sample.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13400008