Ketones can become the major fuel source for the heart but do not increase cardiac efficiency

Aims Ketones have been proposed to be a 'thrifty' fuel for the heart and increasing cardiac ketone oxidation can be cardioprotective. However, it is unclear how much ketone oxidation can contribute to energy production in the heart, nor whether increasing ketone oxidation increases cardiac efficiency. Therefore, our goal was to determine to what extent high levels of the ketone body, beta-hydroxybutyrate (beta OHB), contributes to cardiac energy production, and whether this influences cardiac efficiency. Methods and results Isolated working mice hearts were aerobically perfused with palmitate (0.8 mM or 1.2 mM), glucose (5 mM) and increasing concentrations of beta OHB (0, 0.6, 2.0 mM). Subsequently, oxidation of these substrates, cardiac function, and cardiac efficiency were assessed. Increasing beta OHB concentrations increased myocardial ketone oxidation rates without affecting glucose or fatty acid oxidation rates where normal physiological levels of glucose (5 mM) and fatty acid (0.8 mM) are present. Notably, ketones became the major fuel source for the heart at 2.0 mM beta OHB (at both tow or high fatty acid concentrations), with the elevated ketone oxidation rates markedly increasing tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity, producing a large amount of reducing equivalents and finally, increasing myocardial oxygen consumption. However, the marked increase in ketone oxidation at high concentrations of beta OHB was not accompanied by an increase in cardiac work, suggesting that a mismatch between excess reduced equivalents production from ketone oxidation and cardiac adenosine triphosphate production. Consequently, cardiac efficiency decreased when the heart was exposed to higher ketone Levels. Conclusions We demonstrate that while ketones can become the major fuel source for the heart, they do not increase cardiac efficiency, which also underscores the importance of recognizing ketones as a major fuel source for the heart in times of starvation, consumption of a ketogenic diet or poorly controlled diabetes.

Automated summary

Increasing levels of beta-hydroxybutyrate can lead to higher myocardial ketone oxidation rates, but do not increase cardiac efficiency, suggesting a potential mismatch between excess reduced equivalents production from ketone oxidation and cardiac adenosine triphosphate production.