Comparison of arterial and venous blood lactate kinetics after short exercise

Seventeen healthy male volunteers participated in this study designed to compare arterial with both arterialized venous and venous lactate kinetics after short exercise. Blood samples drawn before, during, and after bicycle exercise were analyzed continuously for lactate. A mathematical function incorporating two exponential terms was fitted to the arterial, arterialized venous, and venous lactate recovery curves, and the parameters of the mathematical function were compared using a linear regression. All parameters measured on or fitted to the arterialized venous curves correlated well with the respective arterial data (correlation coefficient R = 0.82 to 0.99, P less than 0.001). Among the parameters obtained from the fit to the venous curves, only those describing lactate removal correlated closely with the arterial results. It is concluded that for lactate kinetic studies during recovery following short-term muscular exercise, the information obtained from arterialized venous blood is comparable to arterial blood, whereas the use of venous blood, from the sampling site in this study, appears suitable for determining only the parameters for lactate disappearance. These conclusions are illustrated by the comparison between arterial, arterialized venous, and venous parameters as a function of the work rate of the previously performed exercise.