Het Effect van Exogene Ketose op Fysiologische Aanpassing aan Inspanning op Hoogte

With increasing altitude, there is a gradual decrease in systemic availability of oxygen for cellular respiration. Correspondingly, hypoxic exposure induces profound physiological stress to the human body, in particular when exercise markedly increases oxygen consumption. Many negative effects have been related to lower blood oxygenation upon (acute) hypoxic exposure, such as impaired exercise and cognitive performance, disrupted sleep and recovery, and in more extreme conditions development of altitude illness. However, long term hypoxic exposure boosts physiological adaptation to exercise training and, eventually, exercise performance. Therefore, there has been a continuous search for interventions that mitigate the negative effects of hypoxia, while implementing the positive adaptations. Interestingly, we recently showed that ketone ester (KE) ingestion attenuates the drop in arterial and muscular oxygenation status during exercise in hypoxia. Moreover, our lab for the first time demonstrated the potential of IEK to stimulate muscle anabolism, but also muscular de novo angiogenesis and erythropoietin production. As such, we wanted to evaluate the potential of exogenous ketosis to improve hypoxic tolerance and attenuate the negative effects of (acute) hypoxic exposure as well as the potential to boost beneficial training adaptation.