Ketone Drink May Benefit Heart Health in Type 2 Diabetes: Study Finds
Drinking ketones improves heart health, a new small-scale study from the University of Portsmouth has found. The study is published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
The trial involved 13 participants who were given a drink with ketones, and then a placebo drink over a week later. Their cardiovascular function was measured 30 minutes later using non-invasive monitoring, similar to an ECG; ultrasound to assess microvascular function, which looks at the health of the vessels; and infrared spectroscopy, which assesses the blood flow into small vessels.
Dr Maria Perissiou from the University of Portsmouth’s School of Psychology, Sport and Health Sciences, said: “In all 13 of the participants, their hearts were working more efficiently after the ketone drink at rest and during moderate intensity exercise, compared to the placebo drink. I’m feeling very positive about the results, but more research is needed because we only assessed participants on the day, which means we have no idea what the chronic impact of drinking ketones would be.”
Dr Perissiou added that the effect of ketones on heart health is a serendipitous finding: “It’s only really by chance that we’ve been able to establish this connection after seeing an improvement in cardiovascular health of patients being treated for diabetes with a drug called sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i).”
Reference: Perissiou, M., Saynor, Z. L., Feka, K., Edwards, C., James, T. J., Corbett, J., ... & Shepherd, A. I. (2025). Ketone monoester ingestion improves cardiac function in adults with type 2 diabetes: a double-blind, placebo controlled, randomised, crossover trial. Journal of Applied Physiology.
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