Apparently the ketones generated while being in ketosis and the acetone being exhaled via the mouth can trigger a false positive on breathalyzer tests!
Came across a few websites discussings this (here, here, here, here, and here).
I wish someone had made this clear to me before I started experimenting with ketosis, especially since I’m often in Los Angeles where they have surprise driving under the infuence stops.
Despite the fact that I very rarely drink alcohol now (because it can screw up fat burning), if I were ever randomly stopped and the officer were so inclined to have me take a breathalyzer test… having a false positive that I didn’t expect would create a whole host of problems.
This definitely registers as one of those things that I wish someone had told me before I started… At least now I’m telling you!
Sorry officer! I’m in ketosis.
Let’s go for a ride and get a blood test instead.
This only shows up on very cheap personal breathalysers. I bought 2 on ebay, One was 6 bucks and it shows a level while on keto and another was 20 bucks (still relatively cheap) and was three decimal places vs two on the 6 dollar one. Did not register anything while in keto. Verified again that the unit worked when drinking and it registered a level when alcohol was consumed.
In the end no one will get a legitimate DUI conviction using a cheap toy breathalyser. Maybe there are some old units kicking around that are not accurate, but I would imagine that there is a standardization for these units.
Thanks for the info! That is definitely good to know.
I think I’m in the same camp as Ketoman. Although I have zero experience with ‘toy’ breathalysers, I have had three different brands of ‘personal’ (but professional technology) units (all > $100). All read 0.00 when I tried them while being in at least some level of ketosis, but no drinking.
But this might make for a cool n=1: Buy a ‘toy’ breathalyzer (or buy 2 or three of them). Use both your blood ketone test and the breathalyzers, recording all of the data. You might come up with a formula where you could accurately map the breathalyzer results into a blood ketone level! That would be much cheaper than those blood ketone test strips!!
The whole reason this came up for me was because I picked up a ketonix breath acetone analyzer and was looking around online for more info… will write a brief review of my experience up til now soon…
The AlcoMate Safeguard breathalyzer that i purchased at walgreens does in fact show positive readings of .01-.02 when i am in ketosis that i verify with a precision xtra blood meter (0.6 + mmol/L readings).