Guest Bio

Mark Evans, PhD

Mark is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Agriculture and Food Science at University College Dublin currently working on personalised nutrition. He received his MSc in Sport Nutrition from Liverpool John Moores University in 2015. His PhD research focused on the effect of exogenous ketone supplementation on physical and cognitive performance in athletes. Mark has worked as a consultant in elite sport with the Leinster Rugby sub academy and the Football Association of Ireland, where he was responsible for overseeing the development of a sport nutrition programme for youth and senior national teams.  

Twitter: @MarkEvans_17

On this episode:

• What are ketone bodies and in which situations are they produced
• Differences between ketogenic diet and exogenous ketone supplementation
• Absorption kinetics of different forms of exogenous ketones
• Metabolic pathways of exogenous ketone supplementation
• Evidence regarding ketone supplementation in exercise performance
• Ketone supplements use in Pro cycling
• Posible effects on recovery and training-induced overreaching
• Ketones and cognitive functions
• Appetite suppressing effects
• Future lines of research

Articles mentioned in the podcast:

Evans, M., Cogan, K. E., & Egan, B. (2017). Metabolism of ketone bodies during exercise and training: physiological basis for exogenous supplementation. The Journal of physiology, 595(9), 2857-2871.

Cox, P. J., & Clarke, K. (2014). Acute nutritional ketosis: implications for exercise performance and metabolism. Extreme physiology & medicine, 3(1), 17.

Cox, P. J., Kirk, T., Ashmore, T., Willerton, K., Evans, R., Smith, A., … & King, M. T. (2016). Nutritional ketosis alters fuel preference and thereby endurance performance in athletes. Cell metabolism, 24(2), 256-268.

Evans, M., Patchett, E., Nally, R., Kearns, R., Larney, M., & Egan, B. (2018). Effect of acute ingestion of β-hydroxybutyrate salts on the response to graded exercise in trained cyclists. European journal of sport science, 18(3), 376-386.

Evans, M., & Egan, B. (2018). Intermittent Running and Cognitive Performance after Ketone Ester Ingestion. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 50(11), 2330-2338.

Stubbs, B. J., Cox, P. J., Evans, R. D., Cyranka, M., Clarke, K., & de Wet, H. (2018). A ketone ester drink lowers human ghrelin and appetite. Obesity, 26(2), 269-273.

Leckey, J. J., Ross, M. L., Quod, M., Hawley, J. A., & Burke, L. M. (2017). Ketone diester ingestion impairs time-trial performance in professional cyclists. Frontiers in physiology, 8, 806.

Related episodes:

FTP#6: Jamie Pugh, PhD – Feeling lighter from start to finish: Minimizing gastrointestinal symptoms in cyclists

FTP #2: Fuel for the work required. Amplifying training adaptations by manipulating carbohydrate ingestion