'I once thought ketones were so good they'd rendered training obsolete'

The deeper your pockets, the better the placebo effect

- Michael Hutchinson

There are several factors that influence the effectiveness of a placebo medical treatment. The qualifications of the person handing it over help - a placebo works better coming from a doctor than coming from your mum. Inconvenience or discomfort will help too, for instance placebo injections are much more effective than placebo tablets.

Describing the treatment as "innovative" will give it a bit more fake zing. Some science that you don't understand is good too. And, obviously, the more expensive it is, the better.

All that is by way of introducing the subject of ketone drinks, the current buzz-substance in sports nutrition. If I'd been challenged to devise a placebo for cyclists, I'd have been very proud if ketones was what I'd come up with.

Wildly expensive, disgusting to drink, scientifically difficult to explain, and provided by doctors from teams with big research budgets.

And while I don't know for sure because no one has done the research, I'd suggest that multiple calls for a product to be banned would also add greatly to any placebo effect. Ketone drinks are placebo perfection.

Of course, none of that means that ketones don't work. It just means that figuring out whether there is any genuine physiological effect based on nothing other than rider anecdotes is going to be very difficult.