Dominic D'Agostino

You can consume 1,3-butanediol and it's a precursor to beta-hydroxybutyrate.

When you consume it, it goes through the alcohol dehydrogenase pathway.

and produces much like alcohol.

You can elevate BHB with this precursor, but it needs to be metabolized by the liver.

And when it's metabolized by the liver, the liver does have to work a bit.

If you consume enough to like jack up your ketones to three or five millimolar for two or three weeks, you're going to see your liver enzymes jump up.

So I've done that with one, three, and you have to take a lot of it.

You're talking about 150 to 200 milliliters per day for someone like me to be in therapeutic ketosis.

So when you do that, you're also generating an aldehyde.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

There's a couple of things going on.

You drink alcohol, you're de-energizing the redox state of the liver and you're generating acetyl aldehyde, an aldehyde molecule, which aldehyde damages DNA.

It's got oxidative stress issues, baggage that comes with it.

You're also generating acetate.

When you drink alcohol, you're generating acetate.

And the brain, acetate is actually something I looked into.

It's a remarkable alternative fuel for the brain.

Maybe a lot of people don't know that, but when you drink alcohol, you're giving your brain acetate.

We can come back to that.