Chronic oral lactate supplementation does not affect lactate disappearance from blood after exercise

This study tested the hypothesis that a 3-week oral lactate supplementation affects postexercise blood lactate disappearance in untrained male subjects. Fifteen men were randomly assigned to either a lactate supplementation (n = 8) or a placebo (n = 7) treatment. During the treatment period they drank an oral lactate or a maltodextrin (placebo) supplement twice a day. The lactate drink contained 10 g of lactate as calcium, sodium, and potassium salts. Blood lactate concentrations were studied before, during, and immediately after three exercise tests, both pre- and posttreatment. Peak lactate values for placebo (PL) or lactate (L) treatment groups during different tests were as follows: Test 1 PL, 13.49 +/- 3.71; L, 13.70 +/- 1.90; Test 2 PL, 12.64 +/- 2.32; L, 12.00 +/- 2.23; Test 3 PL, 12.29 +/- 2.92; L, 11.35 +/- 1.38 and were reached 3 min postexercise. The decrease in blood lactate during the long (30- to 45-min) recovery periods amounted to / 10 mmol/L. Blood lactate changes were highly reproducible. However, a 3-week oral lactate supplementation did not result in differences in lactate disappearance. This study does not support the hypothesis that regular oral lactate intake at rest enhances the removal of lactate during and following exercise, that is, not with the given lactate load and supplementation period.