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Who Would Like to Participate in a Simple Study to Measure Blood Lactate Levels?

Messages
7
Mendus might be a useful resource for this study. We could use that platform to record and report the results.

Indeed I think Joshua would be interested in trying to set up such a study. You should certainly approach him about it.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Indeed I think Joshua would be interested in trying to set up such a study. You should certainly approach him about it.

Is Joshua someone on this forum? If so, you might want to tag him, so as to get his attention with an alert (alerts are displayed on the top right of the page). Raising and alert is done by placing an @ symbol in front of their username like so: @justpat
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I can just tell you mine, if you like.

You mean your post-exercise lactate levels? Yes, that would be interesting. I take it you have a lactate meter.

You'd need to do short bout of say 90 seconds of intense exercise (as intense as you can manage with your ME/CFS), then measure lactate at 5 minutes and 30 minutes post-exercise.

This exercise test needs to be done at least 2 hours after your last main meal (food affects the results).
 

msf

Senior Member
Messages
3,650
Ah, sorry, didn´t realise you wanted the post-exercise level - my levels were already high without exercise, so I would imagine exercise would make them even higher.
 

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,444
Location
USA
I was trying to find some blood lactate research on astronauts in long term space flight, when they come back to Earth, but could not find any. I don't think there is anybody who gets quite as deconditioned as such astronauts. Even their muscles atrophy. So they would set the standard for extreme deconditioning, and if ME/CFS patients did worse than long term astronauts in terms of lactate elevation, then this elevation could not be blamed on ME/CFS deconditioning.
@alex3619 and Hip
Glycogen storage disease type V is interesting since is the closest I have found to CFS from a symptoms or reaction to exercise point of view, they have exercise intolerance and PEM. so if NASA didn't work this community might help.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
McArdles disease is a little different since patients gain more energy after exercising a while. We do have to keep the glycogen storage diseases in mind as differential diagnoses. In one case I found someone who was thought to have CFS at one point, but later was found to have Tarui disease, which is type VII. I referred them to Dr Tarui in Japan.

There may be lots of communities we can interest in this kind of approach.
 

Emootje

Senior Member
Messages
356
Location
The Netherlands
Also, a more easily treatable case of elevated blood lactate is thiamine deficiency:

lactate.jpg

Source

Thiamine deficiency lowers thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) and thereby the conversation from pyruvate to acetyl-CoA forcing the pyruvate into lactate. Low TPP also decreases alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (α-KGDH), an important enzyme in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle:

2049-3002-1-16-4-l.jpg

Source

Thiamine treatment may also be effective in:
Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Also, a more easily treatable case of elevated blood lactate is thiamine deficiency:

View attachment 13204
Source

Thiamine deficiency lowers thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) and thereby the conversation from pyruvate to acetyl-CoA forcing the pyruvate into lactate. Low TPP also decreases alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (α-KGDH), an important enzyme in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle:

View attachment 13205
Source

Thiamine treatment may also be effective in:
Fibromyalgia, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease.
That is interesting. I had a quick look at the source paper for the first diagram, but my science brain isn't available at the moment and I can't understand much.

I was interested in the bit that said that sodium bicarbonate improved pH whilst increasing lactate. I already take sod bic, and it varies in how dramatic its effects are (increase in energy). Maybe that is due to variation in my thiamine status.

I have heard quite a lot of PwME benefit from thiamine, and I am not sure why I haven't tried it yet!
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
@MeSci
If you give thiamine a try make sure you take a Lipid-soluble thiamine like benfotiamine, sulbutiamine (passes the BBB) or allithiamine (also passes the BBB).
Thanks. I found that I already take more than 8 times the RDA of thiamine in my multivit, but maybe it's not very effective in that form.

Here is Examine.com's page on benfotiamine.
 

Research 1st

Severe ME, POTS & MCAS.
Messages
768
Did anyone buy the meter and measure their lactic acid levels?

Hi John. Sorry to yourself and others replying months late.

I have a lactate monitor. Hopefully we can revive this thread as other members of PR have one too and look keen on having a little experiment together.

Edit: Would measuring urine pH be helpful at the same time as blood lactate? I can probably convince someone to lend me a machine (reads urine sticks automatically without human error in interpreting levels).I realise blood pH is superior to urine, but that requires an arterial stab in hospital! So unless someone has designed a blood monitor for home use that does peripheral blood pH I think I'll have to stick with urine pH.


:)
 
Last edited:

PennyIA

Senior Member
Messages
728
Location
Iowa
What sort of control did you have in mind?

I am thinking that this test could include all levels of ME/CFS severity. ME/CFS patients usually have a good idea of how much exercise it takes to induce PEM, so for each patient in this lactate test, they would want to choose for themselves an exercise level which induces a degree of PEM — but obviously not a major crash.

I am also thinking that we could get a few healthy controls involved (eg, family members who do not have ME/CFS), just for comparison purposes. The healthy control could perform the same exercise as the ME/CFS patient does, so that we can have a direct comparison.

Myself, although I have a moderate level of ME/CFS, I don't actually get PEM from physical exercise, only from mental exertion. I can run a mile without too much difficulty. It's possible this might be reflected in my own lactate response.

I am in the UK.

I am only now seeing this - and would be interested in participating as I'm currently in remission and at a mild level.

I think it would be useful if we could self-classify ... as mild/moderate/severe... AND if we can take some measurements from healthy counterparts after the same type of exercise. that would fit our mild/moderate/severe levels. Then the 'control' would be that we pass our data in as we find them.

I'm thinking that if we tabulate the results control, mild, moderate, severe would get their own rows and means/averages. Then if we're right - then I'd expect mild patients to be different from controls - but maybe not statistically so (maybe, maybe not) - but as we progress through the severity levels - it should differ more and more from the controls.