Home blood glucose monitoring is essential for diabetics, but now athletes and people on extreme diets regularly use these devices.  There are many blood testers on the market, but most report only glucose values. The FDA requires 20% accuracy which has been problematic. Recently a new blood glucose / ketone tester has come on the market that has changed the game. Enter the the Keto-Mojo. This device stands out from the other home blood testers for the following reasons:

• accurate to 5% of lab tests for home blood glucose testing . In particular it works very well with lower blood sugar levels which often occur when someone is deliberately putting themselves into ketosis
• tests both blood glucose and blood ketones. It is not the only device on the market that can do this the Precision Xtra can also test both
• ketone strips are affordable at only $1 each. This is 4x less than what I had been paying for Precision Xtra blood ketone strips.
• hematocrit is displayed. That is the volume percentage of red blood cells. This can be helpful as a performance indicator.
• hemoglobin is displayed. That is the protein inside your red blood cells that transports oxygen. Also helpful as a performance indicator.
• An optional calibration solution is available for the rare case where a meter might be skewed.

I tested the keto-mojo against several well known blood meters. On top is my glucose with a 11 point spread between three meters. This is typical with the FDA 20% requirement, but based on my diet and activity the day before I place my confidence in the keto-mojo with the low value of 81 mg/dL. On the lower portion is a ketone reading comparing the Precision Xtra which had been the gold standard for blood ketones against the keto-mojo. Again, a significant increase in blood ketones on the keto-mojo at 1.9 mmol/L vs 1.6 mmol/L. These are typical readings for optimal ketosis.

Since the the keto-mojo has the unusual feature of showing hematocrit and hemoglobin I thought it would be fun to test it by doing any activity that causes both values to shoot up. Above are my recorded HCT and HB values for a 10 day period. The day before I started recording them I climbed two 10,000′ peaks and ran a little over twenty miles. I figured that the hypoxia from running at altitude would force my body to adapt and increase oxygen carrying capacity through EPO release. That is exactly what I saw. HCT 50% and HB 17% are my highest by far for the 10 day test period. The only other spike is the day after I did hard climbing 8.5 mile trail run with a sustained zone-4 intensity. Below is the altitude profile of the trail run that bumped my HCT and HB the most during this 10 day period. 

The takeaway from this is due to keto-mojo not hiding their HCT and HB values we can play with them in training and as a potential flag to get further blood work done by a lab. Having extremely low or high levels of red blood cell production can be a cause for concern. A low hematocrit could indicate a medical condition, nutritional problem or over hydration. Strong hemoglobin mass numbers are correlated to excellent vo2max performance due to enhanced oxygen carrying capacity. Hemoglobin mass is so important in sports that WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) has developed a system of blood profiles for athletes when looking for use of the banned red blood cell producing substance EPO and blood transfusion techniques.