Lactate Reimagined: From Fuel to Signal With Dr Aitor Viribay Morales and Prof Paul Laursen

This week on the Shrine Science Podcast we go deep on the molecule that everyone spent a century trying to get rid of lactate. For 100 years we treated it as the enemy, burning your legs, the thing to flush out a reason that you blew up. Then George Brooks flipped the whole picture on us. Lactate isn't the waste, it's the fuel. And now people aren't just clearing it, they're drinking it. My guess this week is Eitor Virobe Morales, and we get into the future of exogenous lactate. We cover it's signaling properties, the parallels with ketones, and what our own means for training, performance, and health. Just another incredible conversation with a pioneer in our field. So without further ado, I now bring you Eitor Virobe Morales. I'm here with Eitor Virobe. Eitor, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for nice to be here. Great, great. Awesome, I'm really looking forward to the conversation. We are the training science podcast, and I know you, but I'm doing my research on you. It sounds like you're into training yourself. You certainly look like you're a fit fellow. What's your own personal background and interest in sport? Where do that all start for you, Eitor? I'm coming from being a vibrator cyclist. I used to compete on high level, almost professionally, even a half a year or almost almost there. Then I retired. I had this bone and necklaces, this is where I had to stop. But I have always been moving around in the mountains, running, biking. Has been my element, but the transition into running as well, I can say, I'm pre-active. Yeah, that's awesome. Very cool. A classic semi-poil, as Martin and I like to call it. When you run out of places to go in the sport world, where do you go? Sports science, right? We switched to science. I have to say, are you starting studying engineering? Civil engineering, you know, is to build bridges and roads and things like that. I used to study engineering while I was competing as a bike rider. But I changed paths when I retired from cycling. I said, you know what? I think I like physiology, so I'm going to start with this. But you might. That's so cool. That's so cool, because I see so many scientists that are innovative. They almost come from that engineering background where they have that first principles, philosophy, first and foremost. And I think that's probably something that has defined the way I understand the body and the science as well. I think I've caught a lot of mechanisms or way of thinking that are coming from engineering. I don't think you're going to boy that. A mind is a mind and something you're just thinking. That's an engineering problem. And I see a lot of impact on everything that I do right now on those studies and my mindset. Yeah. Okay. So you went from engineering into physiology and then somewhere along the way. Is that right? Yeah. And I have to say in Spain, you don't. You kind of study physiology as a degree. So I went first into nutrition. As a human nutrition, that's the degree that I studied. And then I specialized myself into physiology. I ended up doing my PhD on sports science and physiology and exercise metabolism. That's where I am right now. Very, very cool. So you've got. Yeah, I love the background, right? We've got engineering. We've got nutrition. We've got physiology. We have your own personal experience in the high level in the cycling world. And now somehow we're going to get to the central concept of lactate. So where did your interest in lactate then begin through all of this? Yeah. Well, that's probably. I don't know. I think we all have something that we get somehow obsessed with. And I think I can say lactate was one of those concepts for me. I studied very soon research on carbohydrates. When you study deep or in detail the carbohydrate metabolism, you end up studying lactate. So I got fascinated by all those studies from groups. You know, Ravinovi, it's glad and like I've been always a big, big fan of them, especially Brooks, I think is all my kind of honor to him because he has defined the way we understand lactate right now. Then I eventually ended up being pretty close to Inerossambian learning from him a little bit and getting inspired by him as well. And I've been always a little bit obsessed with lactate. I remember when I was bi-gri there myself, I was measuring on myself, he's trying to. And about in the days I remember I had to go to France, so from the bus country I had to travel to France, I was a very calm one, you know, almost 12 years ago. So yeah, I got slightly obsessed with lactate and I had to say probably, since we started with these studies on the carbohydrate field, I had a mind like we need to try to kind of bring lactate so you know, to the body. So that was seven, six, seven years ago I studied with that idea. And the last three years we founded a lab here in the bus country and we, well, it seems like we arrived to some kind of solution finally, but it has been a kind of a process on research and developing truly, you know, what I'm talking about. But yeah, one of those kind of entrepreneur, entrepreneur because I'm definitely not a entrepreneur, but one of those journeys that you started, you know, both had idea, they just started developing things and then you find different people thinking differently, differently to you and you end up with a potential solution. And that has been the journey. Yeah, I went, that's so cool. I love it. I love the innovation. I, you, yeah, I've got my friend from the bus country as well, Enigle, Mexico and you know, he's been on the podcast and yeah, he's a good friend and it's wonderful. It's wonderful to see another passionate individual in this area that's coming through. Hi, Tor. So if I'm not wrong, we are, we're both from the, from the same city. Oh, you're kidding. Which city is that? Yeah, no, I'm not kidding. Victoria, Victoria Rastase. Yes, yes. Yeah. And yeah, I feel, I feel the passion whenever I speak to him about it. So I'm sure you share that. Yeah, definitely. That's great. Hey, coaches and sports scientists, let's be honest, you're probably drowning in data right now. GPS, heart rate, force plates, blood markers, and you still probably not even sure if your players are actually ready or not. That's because more data doesn't fix anything if you don't have a system to make sense of it. My buddy, Martin Meshite has been solving this exact problem for well over 15 years at all the big name clubs. And his brand new course at Hit Science gives you that system. 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The Godfather of lactate and understanding, the modern understanding of it. Where did the old views start to happen and then how did that all sort of shift to where we're at now? Talk us through it. Yes. I'm probably not the best person to, you know, I'm 32 years old. So I didn't. I wasn't alive in those initial kind of research or studies or results were obtained even by books. But I've read quite a lot and I think we can say, you know, when lactate was kind of not well discovered, we can say like the lactic acid was introduced as a term and mostly coming from food and compounds that were kind of because before physiology, human physiology that was identified on foods. So we can even now find in every any jog or door meal. Yeah. Actually, you know, part of that field of or food categories, you know, the name is coming from Lafty Cassid. And well, that all, you know, evolved. And I think one of the first definition of Lafty Cassid is related to the fatigue of anaerobic muscles. So when they identified that Lafty Cassid was present in some, let's say, cells that were under anaerobic conditions, something that probably right now we could change the interpretation or the definition of that term. Oh, yeah. That has been hopefully evolved as well. And that has massively kind of traveled through the scientific literature into, you know, I think my stone is definitely those studies run by Brooks and the definition of the Lafty Cassid theory, which has allowed us to understand that Lafty is far from being the debil is really an instrumental molecule on the human metabolism. Yeah. And I'll start. Period there. I don't want you to under let's bring it on under the same page. I think we've understood what you're saying at first. But breaking down the Lafty Cassid for us, like what is the whole thing about the Lafty Shuttle? What does the listener have to understand? Well, it is probably hard to explain that very, very formally, but I could say just to summarize and make it super practical. I think Brooks discovered that Lafty can travel through the body that can be produced in certain cells and can be consumed or oxidized on some others. And that open a new research field to understand how Lafty essentially travels preferentially through the body. As we would say, like with the VIP kind of tech. So I can come in and I will depend on what I want to do. And I think that's what essentially defines. Lafty can travel from the production sites to the oxidation sites or clear on sites that are essentially fibers or tissues organs. And that what it defines or it helps understanding why Lafty could travel that we ended up with these three important concepts around Lafty, which is not only a source of energy. I think Lafty Shuttle theory theory is very important to understand that Lafty is a source of energy. So it is produced and is converted into energy somewhere else. There is a major gluconeogenic precursor. So that Lafty can also be converted into more glucose. So that the whole pool pose behind that travel that Lafty does, for example, between a cell of the precepts muscle that I'm making a contraction. And it goes all the way down to the liver and it creates more glucose there. That's the gluconeogenic process. And then something more important. And I think it will open a massive, it's already open in a massive research of field of research, which is the signaling properties of Lafty. So the fact that Lafty is traveling doesn't mean only that it is going to be used to create more glucose or to be used as a source of energy. But also on that travel is going to make some impact on the environment. It is going to say, I'm here. So I'm going to make that effect. And that's very evident, for example, on the consuming cells. Well, Lafty is present there. He sends some message to the whole cell. He says, I'm here. So maybe glycolysis, everything twice, you can stop a little bit down or mitochondria, you know, think twice. You can use me. And that means more conversion into ATP. Or even genetically, we know that it can trigger some epigenetic and some transcriptional processes. Amazing. So that's the third leg of the third role, the third cup of Lafty, that is, I find it extremely fascinating. Yeah. Well, we often talk about, you know, signals like, you know, that happen in the muscle cell that make training adaptations. We talk about the calcium calmodulin and the AMPK to PGC1 alpha to make more mitochondria. So you're saying basically that lactate can do a similar function all around the body. And I think you mentioned, you mentioned them briefly, I missed them. So if lactate is passing through the various cells and touching them and signaling them, what is it, what is it causing later on? What is it signaling them to do later on? What many things are depends on the cells. I think lactate is, you know, I learned from Inigo and Brooks that lactate is, it plays a big role on the, you know, big physiological processes of the body. So you can find different roles on a cancer cell or on a immune system, a T cell, for example, or on the muscle cell that we used to contract and then, you know, make some power into the pedals on the bike or on the on our suits on the on the run. So there are different mechanisms which by lactate can trigger certain kind of potential adaptations. When it comes to, for example, exercise, one of them that I find extremely interesting is that it can modulate the substrate utilization in the muscles and, for example, okay. So when extrusion is like that is introduced into that cell, it can say, okay, I'm here. The thought that I'm here says something and that means you have inducing carbohydrates or glycolysis at this rate. You have, you have in converting transform in energy through fatty acids this way, but I'm here now and that is going to change. Okay. So when we say that lactate is preferential source of energy is because it contains that VIP pass and it says, I'm preferential. So I'm going to go first and that is going to make an impact on how you glucose or fatty acids you go after me. Okay. So for example, something that we have even, we have already seen on some of our pilot studies with, so you know, the lactate is that when you ingest that and we, there are some other studies in animals and humans as well. When you, for example, inject lactate into a cell, let's say, the glycolysis is inhibited. So it says stop. Why? Because I'm already here as the main source of carbons, which is essentially glucose. So you don't need to boost more. I mean, glycolysis, you're going to stop. I'm here. By doing that, lactate fans, potentially promote far oxidation or it can open kind of the door of oxfoss utilization, like stimulating the oxfoss system. And I find that extremely interesting. Yeah. Because that role of, you know, being the organizer internally in the cell of the substrate partition in, it is something that I think we haven't explored yet when it comes to, you know, maybe official physiological potential adaptation. Yeah. Wow. Where do we go? Where do we go with this? There's so many different angles. So, you know, you mentioned some big words there that we should clarify. As you mentioned, exogenous. Of course, there's the word endogenous. So let's, let's just define those two key key points for the user. Yeah. Hi, Tar. Well, I think that's a very important point because to be for all the knowledge or the, the, the majority of the knowledge we've got on the lactate is it relies on the endogenous lactate. So we know that lactate is produced in a cell. For example, when you are contracting a fiber to type cell, you are, you know, Jorg like, Colossus is producing lactate. And that lactate is going to exit that cell and is going to go into somewhere else where it can oxidize. Normally, some other sites that oxidative capacity is higher. OK. So because at the end of the day, lactate has to be oxidized into mitochondria, mitochondria complex. Well, that said, we have studied that. So we know that it does in us lactate. We know the behavior of that endogenous lactate. And we know that to produce lactate, you have to pay a cost, which is activating that like Colossus. OK. So when you activate that like Colossus, or you break down the glucose, then you create lactate. However, over the history, I think that the, the, the no let's around the exogenous lactate is very limited because we, let's say we have been limited on the capacity to ingest or put 30 body that exogenous lactate. So basically now at, is we've got a lot of no let's on endogenous lactate. We've got a very limited knowledge on exogenous lactate. The difference between both of them is, as I said, you have to pay the cost of producing it, which is activating your glycolysis, for example, on, on them, on the environment of an exercise, you have to go into zone three or zone four, zone two, high zone two, intensity, just to produce lactate, and X-Full-I-Tade or X-Agin-Late. is likely it comes for free somehow. It's just like something that you are putting into the body, whether that's injection, or medical studies for example, or orally, and that comes from for free. So we still don't know very well that behavior. We understand very well what happens with likely when you produce it internally because that's the natural way of doing that. We still don't know how that behavior is going to be with extraordinary and slap it. And I think you can use different analogies. The ketones is a good one. We understand very well how we produce ketones. When you reduce your carbohydrate availability and you go into certain physiological state, you produce ketone bodies internally. But then we also have extraordinary ketones, which are ketones that we commonly use for a know that kind of bottle that I'm sure you have seen somewhere. The knowledge is very different. We know a lot about how you can create endogenous ketosis and the effect of that. We know a little bit more than lactic, but still limited information around how exogenous ketones can work. So is exactly the same analogy. Yeah, we've had sheer puffy on the podcast for the exogenous ketones. He's a real leader in that area. But it's fascinating the more they go down those rabbit holes and the studies that they're doing. There's just one I saw came out the other day. We're going to have Chiehl back on. But it was signaling for angiogenesis. I believe it was the latest one. And then of course, there's the EPO findings as well. So there's more of these. And again, back to where you let off with the signaling. The signaling is likely the causing these. And we're probably, like you said, just at the very beginning of figuring out the potential signaling benefits of exogenous out from outside in terms of the lactate. Maybe just to begin, I always think when I look to the ketone, the exogenous ketone supplementations, I always think it's a really great opportunity to think about, well, man, imagine if I'm doing something like that endogenously for myself. Let's just think of the potentials of fasting or fasted training that might induce a bunch of ketones, right? In terms of just naturally, as sometimes difficult as that can be. But you know, in the cycling world of coaches, they've prescribed fasted rides for decades and decades and decades, right? They sort of found something there. Now it's kind of, to me, I'm thinking the same sort of way now with lactate and with my hit science hat on and almost like the potential benefit of properly calibrated high intensity interval training in order to induce natural endogenous high lactates from time to time. Again, has to be a positive signaling environment. Of course, now we're also now potentially able to manipulate this exogenously. So I think there's benefits in improving our understanding on all these different areas of how to live and perform. So it's cool. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think, I mean, not only that, it's not the only pathway, but one of those pathways that we use to adapt from training definitely is the signaling properties of lactate that we produce lactate and that makes us bigger, let's say, or better. You know, lactate is part of the, you know, some of the major or the biggest physiological adaptational processes in the body. You know, hypertrophy, for example, lactate plays a big role in that. Policially, I think, Genesis as well, vital control by the Hinesis. So we push the body to the zone three, four, five, whatever zone it is, like at the high intensity. Of course, to create a lot of messages to the body that might be interlocking stress, different, other kind of stimulus for the body, but lactate is one of them. So lactate drives a certain kind of group of adaptations that comes from training. So the same as fasting that you can get some potential adaptations from fasting and that's to something to keep the bodies. Lactate is one of the drivers of adaptations and that's one of the reasons why we exercise at high intensity. The only problem that is the one million dollar question is how much high intensity volume we can do. I mean, if we could just imagine this ideal word where we could do 20 hours of zone four, that might be incredible stimulus for the body, incredible. And we could grow like on rates that we cannot even imagine right now. But the reality is that that is not possible. It's not suitable for the body. So it's not something that you can sustain. You cannot train 20 hours of zone four. You basically you're going to destroy yourself. But I suspect, and this is just the forensic hypothesis that exogenous lactate can potentially help on the kind of on maybe mimicking those efforts of the exercise. Like how we can add in over the day to make the body count more hours of high intensity without doing them. So essentially creating a metabolic state that is associated to zone three, but without paying the price of the cost of the mechanical load, for example, in running. So that's important that hypothesis that I suspect there might be something. Yeah, I love it. I'm thinking, I don't know, I'm thinking about my or other colleague, Marlon and I as PhD student formally, when you did his PhD with the Dan Pluse with the with the rolling team at New Zealand, and one of the observations we made, he was totally looking at heart rate variability across that. And what the general gist that came out of that data with the Olympic program was that, you know, low intensity exercise zone two training and below was exceptional at raising HRV and ultimately, probably facilitating an adaptive state. And then when the key sessions, the high intensity, likely lactate producing sessions were performed, well, that flattened the HRV line. You know, thinking that there's some association between these high lactate levels and a larger parasympathetic withdrawal or sympathetic appearance. And but correlation does not prove causation. And certainly, I'm imagining that someone's going to have exogenous lactate at high levels. So that's not necessarily an unlikely at a, you know, if there's no stress that's induced, that's probably not going to be inducing anything in HRV. So it's a nice one to just sort of be aware of there, just a random thought. No, no, but that's a very interesting standpoint. I think, you know, of course, that correlation, I would say, has nothing to do with lactate, but with the cost of producing that lactate, you know, HV is a, let's say, a sign of the nervous system. And of course, if you have to activate a cell, the cost of the nervous system is very high. So you have to, and that's the reason why it's so expensive to spend a lot of time on 3, 3, 1, 4. That's a very, you know, not only cognitive, cognitive, but also nervous system costs this very high. So I think it's mostly related to that. But that's a little bit, I don't know, this is all questions. I'm not saying anything here, but just imagine creating that metabolic state that can induce, sorry, adaptations without making any impact on the nervous system. For example, just to mind that those kind of things, I'm, you know, make me dream somehow, which, by the way, I have no evidence, and I have no clue how that could be. But, you know, potentially there are mechanisms, they are, you know, they're so logic there, and that's what we can keep researching around. I can say, by the way, all these, Paul, you know, we're having, well, for more than two years right now, trialing exogenous likely with different athletes, this new solution that we, you know, that we, that we came up with, there is a, it seems like a common response to that exogenous like this implementation that is certain positive impact on the HIV, for example. And that's interesting. And I don't know why, but I don't know how, but I suspect, you know, never system loves lactate. And again, there are some elegant studies on the brain than the preferential source of energy and the brain when lactate is available is, is for lactate. So you spur glucose on your astrocytes on those kind of helpers cells for the neurons. And there is a very nice study that it was published, I think, a couple of years ago. So they introduced high product to them, you know, in two different ways. exercise, so basically you do in a high-intensity bold effect size, and another one passive infection. Okay, so they match the same concentration on the blood. And what they saw is that when the brain is exposed to four millimoles of flat rate concentration in the blood, it quickly shifts metabolism and out of 10% of the, let's say, ATP demands 25 is taken by lactate. But when you produce that high-product that it may up to eight millimoles, I think that can, that goes up to 60 or 70%. So that shows that well-laptid is available in the brain, in the nervous system, which is the biggest organ of the nervous system is the brain, of course, not the only one. Alaptid is a preference of source affinity. So the brain is going to decide, I've got collected here, I'm going to use lactate and I'm going to save some glucose here. So I suspect the nervous system gets very happy when lactate is produced. And actually there are some, some, well-earned studies why high-intensity produces that dopamine release and that, you know, happiness is certainly related to the lactate release into the brain. So it makes me, I don't know, three millimoles, but that is what. That's so cool. We've had this exact conversation. So we, see the wind trainer bike here beside me and we do this session on, on velocity, which is like an online platform where everyone kind of gets to train together. And we all do our athletic a session there. And we were having this exact same conversation as we were doing our 3030, sets of 3030, ultimately. And we was basically encouraging, and we're like, and then you do kind of, you've got that period, you know, shortly after, where whatever you're in some sort of an endorphin dopamine, maybe lactate, and it's like, and it's like, you can be quite creative and you feel quite good and tired, but good. And I think everyone listening is probably experiencing that and it's would be, it's probably impossible to know, but you know, it's interesting to hypothesize how much lactate is contributing to that state, that nice flow state that we often feel. I had one other thought. And again, this is the Charing Science podcast. We recently had the great Marius back in on the podcast. Recently it published the Norwegian method. And you know, this is, you know, it was, it was fascinating to listen to his 30 year history on just being obsessed with lactate and kind of like yourself, I tour. And you know, really just doing his best to understand and where his own sort of sweet spot was lying for him. And then we talked about the muscle state as well. But why is it that people like Marius and yourself, I tour, are are finding and the thousands of coaches out there that use lactate as a tool. So what, why is this of a beneficial, I'm called an internal load response? And why is it still valid to do that? Art and science? Well, let me make a note or a point here first because, you know, my, I mean, I'm pretty young. My contributions to science is very humble compared to these guys that you're talking about and of course, Brooks and you know, this big name. Some, you know, if you search my name on how many you're only going to see some some studies. But my contribution and my scientific kind of career is very humble. So I don't think I need to kind of speak on on on their level. But I think I can reply to that question by a very simple kind of question. Sorry, I'll say it's just like, you know, lactate is part of the is at least as it's a molecule that talks about the cellus stress. So if everything that we do in our daily life, not only in training, but also when we are sick or when we're just overthinking over we are stressed. We are, uh, constraining our capacity to transform energy. Lactate is going to be involved in that process. There are a few molecules that are part of that process. There is an emerging model, a protein that is called the GDF 15, um, that's a, sorry, I lost, I lost the name in English anyway. GDF 15, which is an internal biomarker, that talks it basically about how the energy goes to the mitochondria, how the mitochondria react into that flow of electrons. Lactate is one of them. So basically measuring and tracking that molecule lactate, it gives you a sense of what is happening on that cell. So when lactate, we know this very well, it's not oxidized. So let's say we mitochondria cannot meet the, let's say the demands of, of the ATP and it cannot transform more energy. Lactate is going to, is going to get accumulated and that's what we know very well. We see that raise in the blood concentration. So tracking lactate is just a way to track the, stress, the metabolic stress of a cell. And it basically, you know, it's just like, um, it's the sign of what is happening on that cell. So of course it makes sense. Uh, and that's the reason I think why all the practitioners and, and you know, um, uh, coaches in long careers like, you know, people from 50 years ago, they have, you know, ready kind of thinking about lactate. And on top of that is something that we, well, technology has allowed to measure lactate with all the components are not possible to measure in a such a kind of quick and valuable way. So that makes the perfect molecule to track, let's say, fitness or training adaptations and also the internal load. Yeah. No, I think that's really well, really well said, uh, makes me reflect on, um, some of my, my time with the late and great, uh, Laurent Vidal. I was a, um, a French, uh, traffic, place fifth at the London Olympics. He was, then became a coach. Uh, he was training his, his wife, uh, Andrea Huett from New Zealand that I was there visiting them in front of remote, uh, at altitude in a training camp. And he just told me just that. He goes, Paul, it's, it's really all about managing stress at the end of the day is what I've discovered. Um, and to your point, I'd, or the lactate is one, one, one marker that coaches can use, um, to, to, um, to determine where that level of stress is lying. And that is what, you know, um, Marius, Marius, Dr. Dr. Backen, um, discovered and, and others. So very, very cool. I think this is a perfect point now with all that being said is to, to, to turn, to transfer now to your pioneering, um, innovative world of exogenous lactate. Now we're, now we're, we've established that it's not a waste product. It's a signal, uh, and, and a stress indicator. Um, and now how do we potentially also leverage this for either a training or an acute performance effect from the exogenous drinking standpoint where we might envision that in the very near future, um, you know, drinks with lactate exogenous lactate in them are coming into the body and facilitating this in either training or, or, uh, acute performance. Well, let me explain first that lactate exogenous lactate is not anything new. I mean, definitely I haven't invented that. Not at all. Please, no, um, you know, the knowledge and, and the rationale behind that has been there for at least 25 or 30 years. And actually, George Brooks, he holds a couple of patterns on lactate delivering. The problem has been always the, the technical barrier to the liver, the lactate, safely, uh, in a palatable way and in significant amounts to the body. Uh, and, and that's kind of the refinement of that solution, what, what we have, uh, achieved, let's say, well, we can, we can say, I told you, it's, it's not, it's not mainstream commercial, right? Like, I can't, I can't walk up at the 7-Eleven and buy, uh, and buy out. It is not a valid goal, right? It's not even in the market. Exactly. It's not even a valve on in the market at all, right? Okay. On those, on these, let's say category of solutions. So palatable, palatable, safe and in significant amounts that it can make some real effects on the, on the physiology of the, of the human body. That said, um, in the implications of, of exogenous lactate, this is, is, they are, they are many different, and they're different angles. You know, you can apply, uh, that into recovery, into performance, potentially into health. So at the end of the, the mechanisms, if the body in the body, they are the same. They are the same when you are stressed, they are the same when you are jumping or running, and they are very similar with your recovery, or when you have, uh, disease, you know, the body, somehow fights similar, in similar ways against, against what is coming. Um, so because lactate participates on all those kind of, um, physiological mechanisms that are essentially related to converting energy, which is everything that we do, we transform energy, and I believe the difference between a dead body and a light body, just the energy is not flowing anymore, but the material is still there. So that's the only thing that we do is perform in energy continuously. So therefore, Lactite can impact on many different aspects of life. If we bring that into performance, there's some data, there are some mechanisms and logic to think that e-caning back, for example, on Endura's performance, how intensity performance, how well, probably by providing energy, as simple as that, by creating a higher efficiency environment, for example, or simply by protecting Nevers function, Neversystem function, or Neuromuscular function. You can extend that as well into recovery, because at the end of the day, what you want from recovery is to optimize the energy transformation, to allocate energy to those processes of recovery. So Lactite can't help there. And to recover quickly, the Neversystem function. So those, let's say, systems are ready to boost again. So the same principle, very similar mechanisms, they can be applied to performance, let's say, a race or a given training session, or a recovery phase. It can be three, four hours, or even 10 hours after a certain bulk of exercise. But also, you could extend that into health. And all there are, it's like we know, for example, diabetes. Patients, people with diabetes, they, let's say, it's very easy, they cannot manage really well, the glucose. Well, not really well. They cannot manage it. Basically, especially the type one, they are diabetes, they're basically lactobitzylin. Lactite can feel a massive gap there, I suspect. Lactite doesn't need insulin at all. It's a bit all-kinged. It's all-kinged. It's all-kinged. It's all-kinged. Exactly. So at least on the first phase of how you put the substrate into the body, that can be a good element. Then, of course, lactate, success in the body, it depends on your oxidative capacity. So if you can oxidize it, you can convert it into energy. But there are potential implications. But yeah, just talking about performance, which is probably our field of study, what we do, essentially. We advise athletes, and we were mostly into this world. We still don't know how much, but it is pre-logic to think that lactate could contribute to different performance, endurance, or high intensity, for example. And the mechanisms are clear. Source of energy, which is already a thing when energy is a problem. For example, endurance exercise efficiency. So we can't create high efficiency environment, simply because it is, let's say, less expensive to convert energy from lactate than to convert energy from glucose, fructose, or even fatty acids, at some home, on different contexts. And finally, the nervous system, traffic is a major target for total lactate, potential exogenous battery supplementation. Yeah. And if you get them in as well, they're the preferential-- A bit like ketones, aren't they? Iron ketones preferential, too, in terms of a substrate. With-- Yeah, but I'm going to say some of you here. You're telling me. If you want me to say it, as far as I know, lactate and ketones, they serve the same transporter, or some of them, to go into the cells. So let's say they open the same door to go into the room. The affinity of that transporter is much higher for lactate than for ketones. So what we call the KM, which is the marker of affinity of a protein towards something else that can be about a carbon containing molecule, can be the lactate or the ketones. They-- those transporters, the MCT, the different numbers that we've got, they are different-- they are different types of MCT transporters. They prefer lactate over ketones, always. So they always are going to prioritize lactate over ketones. Why is that? Well, essentially, because ketones are a very good-- a very efficient source of entity, when there is a specific context, which is the absence of glucose on fructose that might be fasting, that might be a ketogenic diet, et cetera. But when lactate is available, biologically, biochemistry shows us that lactate is preferential over ketones. And that's something that we also have to consider. That's the reason why, for example, the brain, which is a very sensible tissue to ketones, for example, when there is a big trauma, let's say, a conclusion. And that brain is that much. That means that that brain probably creates very rapidly. It creates a resistant insulin. So it cannot receive the glucose, or-- well, mostly the glucose, to meet the demands. And that's why ketones, they are so important. And those are the substances, because ketones don't need the insulin. They can just bypass all that process. And they go in. There are some studies as well on post trauma we've lacked it. Lactate makes us exactly the same. So the only problem that we've got is that naturally, both of them-- I'm not going to say they don't exist, because the body is a continuum, you know, mix of things. But they're not used to co-exist together. And that's something that I can inform how we think about, for example, exogenous likely, versus exogenous ketones. Well, that's interesting, because like you've been talking here, and I've been thinking about the Jeff Volick faster study, right? Where-- I'm not sure if you've seen the data from it, but it's fascinating. In the three-hour prolonged run in the keto group, calling that, these guys have been low carb for low carb mountain runners for like a year or more. And then the lactate response in those keto athletes is huge. So it's almost like the-- I mean, it's super cool, right? And it must be their liver that is outputting a higher dosage of lactate. Now, isn't that a fascinating finding? It is. Absolutely. And I honestly think we-- whatever we say in Spanish, we feel our mouth with good words. But probably we know very little about that, and how that is happening. And metabolism, we've got-- you're pretty good knowledge. But we don't know why, and how that is happening. We've got very-- a lot of limitations, like sometimes we take conclusions from the blue lactate concentration, but that's essentially a volumetric variable. It's just something that is measuring the concentration. So it can be the same number for different contexts, so the exercise, for example. But for me, it is fascinating. And I have to say, I am coming back to some of those studies that I've read when I was learning on my university degree. And I'm definitely-- I can interpret now those studies and those results from a different angle. And I don't know if I've got more questions or more answers. I don't know, definitely. But I could say it is-- it makes it fast and handy. You can think, I mean, logically, in the keto context athlete, they don't have a lot of glucose going into that brain. And the brain usually needs glucose. So in that context, the body has to figure out a different pathway to get energy into that. It must. And ketones, of course, is one. But lactate, of course, as you're illustrating, emphasizing on the whole podcast, it has to be another one. And the body has to figure out something. It has to figure out a means, because it has to survive. So not absolutely. It has to be one, of course, because we have demonstrated on those studies, we know that even if you restrict your cover-hearted intake, you can still activate your type 2 fibers, of course. I mean, it's not that you cannot make a spring. I mean, you are still running on like policies, that's through different elements as well. Probably on gluconeogenic pathway is extremely activated. So you are obtaining the glucose you need from different sources of energy. So lactate might be there, of course, because otherwise, I think you could stop running or biking or whatever. Yeah. Another-- I just read one of your recent blog posts. Love your work. Love your work there. What is the call is the Glute 4-- Glute 4x, I need to check that out, listener. And your latest one, you were really kind of going back into an area that I used to be fascinated in as well. And it was really where you were looking at the different limitations to carbohydrate absorption around the different glucose requires a certain transporter that basically Cap. out at about 60 grams, 60 grams an hour, and then fructose you can get another 30 in that way, and that's typically where they got to 90 grams an hour. But now you're sort of, you're capping, you're throwing lactate into potentially the mix here too, with its own transporter, and potentially, you know, if from the model of taking in larger glucose lactate amounts, you're again increasing the delivery. So do you want to talk about that briefly? Yeah, well, that's, I mean, we know from the last 20 years of research of the carbohydrate, the surgeon is carbohydrate, let's say, fueling studies that the absorption rates of glucose and fructose are limited, essentially actually the biggest barrier is the absorption, so that the customer's just kind of barrier. And that was limited, we can discuss it that can be challenged, if you know, you can have sort of more or less, if you know, those participated in the tour, the France or whatever, okay, that's the discussion, but definitely there is a limitation. That's the reason why we kind of feel whatever, 400 grams of carbohydrate is per hour. Lactate can, extrusion is lactate goes to different routes, so to different pathways and I find this very interesting because you can support or change or stimulate the body to different pathways on the extrusion is, let's say, energy availability. And that's something that we probably, you have still needs to be understood properly, but yeah, we know the mechanisms that, you know, the MCT one is probably the biggest contributor to that lactate transporting to the interesting or, yeah, the digestive system cells and that follows a different route that is not so far, we don't know if that is such gravel or not, if that is saturated or not. So then it is something pretty cool, but we need to research and we need to see there are so many studies in animals. There's something very fascinating as well that is that lactate can cross the barrier on the opposite way as well. So it does and only go on that way, but it can also do the opposite direction. So for example, we know that from the microbiota, you know, lactate is also produced down there in the colon, for example, and that goes all the way and travels across a different membrane, you know, by directionally. So it is something very, very interesting and I think generally that can open a new brain cell window for fueling, sports nutrition fueling in sports and I'm fascinated about research in that. Yeah. Fantastic. Hey team sport coaches, this is the one you've been waiting for. Dr. Martin Besheitz brand new course, Metabolic conditioning for team sports is now live at the HIT science in just four focused hours. Martin distills his latest research so you can build repeated effort capacity without pointless mileage, pick the HIT format that matches each of your players profile and dose your sessions precisely, no more over or under training. You get lifetime access full course handouts, a HIT science certificate and C use all for just $2.99. You won't find this value elsewhere. So head over to the HIT science website, hit the pop up and enroll. And we'll see you on the inside. Hey team, big news. 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So I can, I'm looking at the time here. I don't have just been such a, sorry, either it's been such a fascinating conversation times flown by. And you've got so much going on. Where, you know, is there any other key areas that we haven't touched on that you would like to in this podcast before we kind of start to wrap things up? Paul, I heard that you, actually, well, you told me on a couple of previous messages that you are fascinated about the main part of exogenous energy supermetation on the neuromuscular function. Yes. Well, I have to say, we were back in 2020, we published one of the first papers, I could say, very fun. I say that because I know some others that were already researching on that. But one of the first papers that was published exploring the 120 grams of cow high-dispirator intake on professional or elite trial runners, one of the main results that we obtained, it was, we don't know because we didn't, we didn't run any about the analysis and all that. But we measured performance and we measured a neuromuscular function. You can go and check the paper. There was a big correlation into the muscle damage, for example, pre-crazy, actually, on the internal load of the of the assets. But most importantly, on the neuromuscular function. So I have to say, I read a lot about what Tim knows, you know, having been following him for a long time and I know in certain kind of post on ex is, he has been appealing you on your neurosis system and having kind of reading those things. I believe one of the biggest impact that ex is cow high-dispiritation makes in the body has to do with neuromuscular function. And I cannot tell you on what kind of level compared with muscle kind of environmental conditions, let's say, or metabolic conditions, sorry, can be whatever glygogen or whatever, but definitely there's a big, big thing to study on the impact of ex is cow high-dispiritation and lactate supplementation on neuromuscular function. We have returned that what we call durability. I was fortunate to participate on a paper led by some very small researchers in the Netherlands where we studied durability in sightest. And I think that was published from 2022 or 2023 if I'm wrong. No, sorry, 2024 I think it was anyway. So I think that contributed to understand that durability, what we call durability, it is not a matter of energy, you know, when you stop running, if we look at your muscle and we make biopsy, there is still plenty of energy that you can still keep running. You're not stopping because you are running our affinity. That's what animals they do, you know, that they keep running the suddenly they decide to stop. And that's because, you know, there is probably certain environment for the environment. So I think ex is cow high-dispiritation. Plus ex is lactate supplementation can trigger that. That's one of the reasons why performance can be improved, eventually, with ex is lactate supplementation. So because I know that you're fast and I read one of your changes with theme notes, such as on Twitter, I just wanted to touch and buy a point. You've opened the canoes. So one of my share where I was always so it came actually after my podcast with with Marius back and and Marius was really a red is book. And then how to put it on the podcast and we spoke quite a bit offline as well about just how much performance improvement he would he would get he would receive when he monitored his muscle status that is his his muscle tone elasticity and stiffness through I think it's called a myotone and that was another part of it. So you know, like we often talk about the double thresholds and the lactate stuff we talk but it was really muscular status and Marius in his belief is that yes central governor's key, but you also like there's a gate if your muscles are not working. You're there's a gate on that. So you've gone You need to have the neuromuscular functioning as well. So then I think I was off for a ride or whatever, and I was pondering things. And I was seeing all of the tweets about the performances in marathon performances in London and Boston and the high doses of them. And I kind of potentially, with Marius in mind, I put the two together. And I wondered, is there something here where a high carbohydrate doses are providing some sort of a neuromodulatory effect on the neuromuscular system? And then I actually read that. I just, for, you know, prep for this podcast, either I read your study. And I was like, oh, there's more evidence. Thank you. So congrats on that. You've, yeah, you've known all along. That could be a potential mechanism. And then Tim, of course, is tweeting, tweeting all about it, because I shared with him too. And he's definitely thinks there's something there as well. So I think we have to collaborate on this, on a feature high dose study there, maybe with lactate as well, either. Wow, it could be, yeah, definitely. I'm up for it. I could be so excited about this. Fantastic. Definitely. I don't, we're heading close to how, where can people reach out to you, follow your work, and the exciting things that you're doing. And can you hint more about what you're, what you and your team are, started doing as well, maybe even first? Yeah. Yeah, well, we're now mostly focused on on this exogenous lactate solution, let's say. And I think it opens a new field of study for everyone. Regardless of the potential product or solution in the market, you know, I'm more interested into the scientific progress that it makes exogenous lactate available for everyone, that people they can start studying. And that is going to open a new window. So we're mostly focused on that. But I have to say from, you know, the last five years, I've been spending a lot of time researching on the, let's say, energy allocation into the body. So working on this concept of the energy part yet, and measuring energy transformation with Dolby-Lobel at water, ice-to-tox technique. So I've got, you know, some very good ideas there, and they're mostly related to the, you know, my practitioner's side of things are than researched because unfortunately, I'm very, let's say humble on the way we can research. We don't have good resources here in our place, and we are limited on that. But I'm fascinated about developing that line as well, understanding the body as, you know, as finite resource of energy, that you cannot spend continuously energy on things. You have to make decisions. You have to allocate energy on different processes. That might be a stress exercise recovery adaptation. I'm fascinated about understanding the body as an energy kind of budget that is dynamic, flexible. So those are my main, let's say, interest, you know, energy budget, and of course, extraordinary lactate supplementation. And I'm not a big name, definitely, but you can find me on Twitter. Yeah, my profile, I think it is M-V-A-TOR. You can also find me on Instagram, you know, do for science, my website. It was three years ago that I wrote the last article and then I said, you know, I have to write down about lactate again, so I did it, but yeah, I'm mostly active on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, that's what I could say, but you can find me. Perfect. Well, that was an awesome hour. I know, I just thoroughly enjoyed it. I've been enlightened. You really got me thinking about different things. And I hope the listener feels the same. I know they do. So, so, Eiter, and we've got some collaboration to do in the future. So, yeah, on behalf of my colleague Martin, team of Hit Science, and, yeah, and listeners, thank you so much for your incredible contributions. At such a young age, I can't believe you're only 32 and you're, you're doing all this stuff. I know, you can go with, certainly, be proud of a fellow BASC, you know, countrymen doing that work, so congrats, and all the best with a continued work. Thank you for all the continued support. Cheers.