Acute Ketone Monoester Supplementation Does Not Change Exercise Efficiency during Incremental Cycling in Trained Individuals

Twenty-eight adults (16 males and 12 females) aged 30 ± 10 yr (peak oxygen uptake (V̇O 2peak ): 59 ± 11 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 ) completed three experimental trials in a randomized, crossover, and double-blinded manner. Participants ingested either 0.3 (KE-LO) or 0.6 (KE-HI) g·kg -1 body mass of KE or a flavor-matched placebo (PLAC) ~30 min before exercise. Exercise involved a 3-min warm-up, three 5-min stages at fixed incremental workloads corresponding to 75%, 100%, and 125% of individual ventilatory threshold, followed by a ramp protocol to volitional exhaustion to determine peak power output (PPO).