When the body burns fat to produce energy, it can be said to be in a state of ketosis. This means that the level of ketones in your blood rises. There are different ways of determining ketone levels in your blood. Due to their low cost and ease of use, ketone test strips are among the most popular. But how accurate are these strips? Well, the accuracy of ketone strips are dependent on a few factors.
Levels of Ketone in your Urine
Ketone strips only measure the number of ketones in urine. In other words, its measurements are based on the ketones that go unused rather than what is present in the blood. Remember that just because your body excretes a small amount of ketones does not mean that the same is reflected in the blood. You could safely be in ketosis while releasing low levels of ketones from your body through urine. In this, therefore, ketone test strips are inaccurate.
Water Intake
The amount of water you drink can affect ketone strip readings. If you drink a lot of water, urine will be diluted and there will be lower ketone concentration. On the other hand, low or no intake of water which leads to dehydration will also result into higher concentration of ketones in urine. Put in another way, you must drink normal amounts of water in order to get accurate results. Therefore, ketone test strips are unreliable and can produce inaccurate results for many people.
Adaptation to Burning Fat
In the initial stages of ketosis, the body learns how to turn fat into fuel. When you begin a ketogenic diet, your body will not be using ketones as efficiently as it is supposed to. Consequently, more ketones will be excreted through urine, resulting into high readings. Later, the body adapts to the process of burning fat and there will be more ketones in the blood than in urine, which ultimately translates to low readings. Hence, the ketone test strips will be showing not only inaccurate results but also the extreme opposite of what is true about your state of ketosis.
Final Verdict
In normal circumstances such as taking just the right amounts of water, ketone test strips may produce accurate results. However, it is not always easy to determine whether your body is in a normal state of not. Therefore, you will most likely get inaccurate results. If you want to increase the chances of accuracy, you are better off using other methods of measuring ketone levels such as blood ketone meter.