Exploring the Southern Constellations. September 2008 : In the summer of 1865, noted American newspaperman and politician Horace Greeley penned, in an editorial, an admonishment to young civil servants in Washington DC. Greeley urged those who complained of low pay grades in the Capitol area to âGo west, young man!â.
When your muscles can't get enough oxygen during a short burst of exercise, they start to make use of a pathway called lactic acid fermentation, which generates a small three-carbon compound called lactic acid or lactate as a byproduct of glucose breakdown.
However, with the neutral pH maintained by the body, most of it will be present in the blood in the form of lactate. This test measures the amount of lactate in the blood or, less commonly, in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Normally, the level of lactate in blood and CSF is low. Lactate is produced in excess by muscle cells, red blood cells, brain, and other tissues when there is insufficient oxygen at the cellular level or when the primary way of producing energy in the body's cells is disrupted.