I used to take ketones, but over the past year or so have changed my position on this. I now believe that it's relatively unhealthy for your body to create ketones on a chronic basis. Not that you should never do it, but it's an emergency mechanism that requires the activation of stress hormones.

There's great value to that, and it can keep you alive. But it's an emergency response. You're going to have to activate cortisol, adrenaline and glucagon, and that choice will worsen, not improve, your biology over time. That doesn't mean ketones are dangerous. They're a powerful tool that, when used selectively, can indeed improve your health. We're discuss that in this interview.

But if you choose to allow your body to produce high levels of ketones, be aware that there's another side to it that's rarely ever discussed, which is the activation of the stress hormones. If you rarely do this there is no problem, as it is a rescue mechanism designed to keep you alive in times of food scarcity. But if you do it every day, I think you're asking for trouble.

Llosa started exploring the exogenous ketones business by way of the late Dr. Richard Veech, a prominent ketone expert. Veech was his wife's godfather. Veech had been sitting on a ketone ester for 10 years and couldn't get it to market. So, that's where Llosa got involved.