Plasma lactate concentration increases as a parabola with delay during ramp exercise.

This study presents an elementary model of a system which relates plasma lactate concentration ([La-]) during ramp exercise to its rate of accumulation (Rc) within its extramuscular distribution space (S). Under the parsimonious assumptions that Rc increases linearly with time (t) with a kinetic delay (delta), and that the volume of S is constant, it is shown that plasma [La-] increases as a parabola with the kinetic delay delta when t increases. This elementary system model describes changes in plasma [La-] observed in five healthy young subjects during ramp exercise on the cycle ergometer (1 W every 2 s) with great accuracy (r > 0.99) with very small residuals (average value less than 0.01 mmol.l-1), randomly distributed around the fitting curves. The delay between the beginning of exercise and the onset of increase in Rc could be due to the fact that at the corresponding work rates: (1) rate of lactate appearance (Ra), which is equal to the rate of lactate disappearance (Rd), is not modified from rest, since the exercising muscles work in fully aerobic conditions (hypothesis of the anaerobic threshold); or (2) the increase in Ra is associated with a similar increase in Rd. An alternate or complementary hypothesis is that, during ramp exercise, plasma [La-] could reflect metabolic events within the muscles, with a significant delay.