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PHYSIOLOGY: Enhanced: Lactic Acid--The Latest Performance-Enhancing Drug
David Allen and Håkan Westerblad
Runners routinely blame their weak and aching muscles on the accumulation of lactic acid. But not so fast, say Allen and Westerblad in their Perspective. They discuss a study (Pedersen et al.) revealing that lactic acid accumulation can, in fact, be beneficial by helping to restore force to weakened muscles. By altering the activity of chloride ion channels, lactic acid may actually boost the generation of action potentials and, hence, muscle activity even as the muscles begin to fatigue.
D. Allen is at the Institute of Biomedical Research, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. H. Westerblad is at the Karolinska Institute, S-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: davida{at}physiol.usyd.edu.au, hakan.westerblad{at}fyfa.ki.se
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In Science Magazine
REPORTS
Thomas H. Pedersen, Ole B. Nielsen, Graham D. Lamb, and D. George Stephenson (20 August 2004) Science305 (5687), 1144.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1101141] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
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