An associate professor at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Dominic D’Agostino, PhD, has a focus on ketone research, supplementation, and emerging ketone technologies. Dominic D’Agostino’s ketone ester studies explore mechanisms by which KetoNutrition can fight cancer, preserve muscle, and contribute to overall metabolic wellness. Dr. D’Agostino was featured in a recent Men’s Health article, “Inside the Rise of Keto: How an Extreme Diet Went Mainstream,” that brings focus to a diet that strictly limits carbs, fruits, and vegetables. The common misconception is that the ketogenic diet is a high protein diet, but it is often capped at or below 100 grams daily (1 gram protein/kg) with up to 90 percent of calories coming from fat in the form of foods such as eggs, fish, steak, bacon, butter, nuts and coconut oil. The modified ketogenic diet has been gaining more popularity, even clinically, and it is characterized by more liberal amounts of protein that can be as high as 30% of calories. This dearth of carbohydrates, low to moderate protein, combined with abundant fat, results in the body entering a state of ketosis, in which fat and ketones, rather than glucose, is primarily burned for energy. Beneficial effects on health biomarkers are seen in blood pressure, blood glucose, triglyceride levels, HDL cholesterol and fasting insulin. Crucially, the diet reduces hunger, as fat and carbs ingested together trigger dopamine release, which provides the brain circuits with extra motivation to consume food. Additionally, the elevation of blood ketones helps to regulate the neurometabolic and neuropharmacological state of the brain towards homeostasis, which not only prevents cravings, but helps to improve moods and preserve a more balance psychological state.
A former research scientist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Dominic D'Agostino serves as a traveling research scholar for the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). Also an associate professor at the University of South Florida, Dominic D'Agostino has assisted with research for KetoNutrition, Ketone Technologies, and the development and testing of exogenous Ketone Supplementation (Ketone Esters).In 2015, the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida employed a unique combination of ketone supplementation and a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric oxygen therapy for cancer management. The study, undertaken on mice with advanced metastatic cancer, demonstrated that ketosis has beneficial effects against cancer cells, which cannot transform ketones into energy as healthy cells do. Further testing is being done on other cancer models to determine what types of cancer will be most responsive to this treatment. Ketosis is the metabolic process whereby the body obtains its energy from fatty acids rather than carbohydrates. In that process, the liver produces molecules known as ketones from the fatty acids. Ketones serve as an alternative fuel for the brain and have important signaling roles on gene expression and suppression (e.g. HDACI) of anti-inflammatory pathways (e.g. NLRP3). For the pre-clinical mouse study, researchers divided the mice into one group that received a typical diet high in carbohydrates and another group that received a modified ketogenic diet with ketone supplements alongside hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Those in the second group lived significantly longer than those in the control group and had reduced tumor burden. Since completing this initial research, the University of South Florida has continued to pursue research for treating cancer through therapeutic ketosis and ketone supplements. The university's researchers have also partnered with other researchers, including those at Moffitt Cancer Center, in preparing for clinical trials with humans. They collaborated on a rreview paper that was recently published in Seminars in Cancer Biology.
