Ketones – Potential to Achieve Brain Energy Rescue and Sustain Cognitive Health during Aging

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common major neurocognitive disorder of aging. Although largely ignored until about a decade ago, accumulating evidence suggests that deteriorating brain energy metabolism plays a key role in the development and/or progression of AD-associated cognitive decline. Brain glucose hypometabolism is a well-established biomarker in AD but was mostly assumed to be a consequence of neuronal dysfunction and death. However, its presence in cognitively asymptomatic populations at higher risk of AD strongly suggests that it is actually a pre-symptomatic component in the development of AD. The question then arises as to whether progressive AD-related cognitive decline could be prevented or slowed down by correcting or bypassing this progressive ‘brain energy gap’. In this review, we provide an overview of research on brain glucose and ketone metabolism in AD and its prodromal condition – mild cognitive impairment (MCI) - to provide a clearer basis for proposing keto-therapeutics as a strategy for brain energy rescue in AD. We also discuss studies using ketogenic interventions and their impact on plasma ketone levels, brain energetics and cognitive performance in MCI and AD. Given that exercise has several overlapping metabolic effects with ketones, we propose that in combination these two approaches might be synergistic for brain health during aging. As cause-and-effect relationships between the different hallmarks of AD are emerging, further research efforts should focus on optimizing the efficacy, acceptability and accessibility of keto-therapeutics in AD and populations at risk of AD.