A novel device for detecting anaerobic threshold using sweat lactate during exercise.

Area of Science:

• Exercise Physiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Lactate threshold (LT1) is crucial for assessing exercise intensity but difficult to measure non-invasively.
• Current methods for LT1 determination are often invasive or inconvenient in clinical settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a wearable sensor for real-time, non-invasive sweat lactate monitoring.
• To investigate the relationship between sweat lactate threshold (LT1) and ventilatory threshold (VT1) during incremental exercise.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a novel wearable lactate sensor to continuously measure sweat lactate levels during exercise.
• Enrolled 23 healthy subjects and 42 patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).
• Correlated sweat LT1 with blood LT1 and VT1 using regression analysis and Bland-Altman plots.

Main Results:

• The wearable sensor successfully visualized dynamic changes in sweat lactate concentration in real-time.
• Sweat LT1 demonstrated strong correlations with both blood LT1 (r=0.92) and VT1 (r=0.71).
• Bland-Altman analysis showed no significant bias between sweat and blood measurements.

Conclusions:

• Non-invasive sweat lactate monitoring via wearable sensors is a viable method for determining LT1.
• This technology offers a convenient and accurate approach to assess exercise intensity and detect VT1 in clinical and research settings.
• Continuous sweat lactate monitoring provides valuable insights for exercise physiology and cardiovascular disease management.