Hyperlactatemia and pulmonary gas exchange at rest and during exercise: lessons from patients on metformin
摘要
What effect does elevated resting hyperlactatemia have on the response to a moderate level of exercise and on the determination of the gas-exchange threshold (GET)? We first identified 163 diabetic patients treated with metformin, a medication that has been shown to produce, in a significant proportion of patients, an innocuous high resting hyperlactatemia and who underwent cardio-pulmonary exercise testing at the Cleveland Clinic. We found that 102 patients had resting [La] < 2 mM (Group 0); 37 had [La] between 2 and 3 mM (Group 1); 12 had [La] between 3 and 3.5 mM (Group 2); and 12 had [La] > 3.5 mM (Group 3). We examined relationships between resting [La], minute ventilation, pulmonary gas exchange, pH, and arterial blood gases at rest and during exercise (Welch’s test, and Cohen’s d to estimate effect size). None of the baseline data exhibited an effect size consistent with a clinically meaningful confounder. Group 3 had significantly lower HCO₃⁻ (22.5 ± 2.3 mM) than Group 0 (24.2 ± 2.4 mM, p < 0.01).