A Functional Study of Oxidative Muscle Efficiency in Older People
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: To assess, in vivo, muscle oxidative efficiency in older people we studied haematic lactate in blood samples obtained from 34 older and 10 young subjects before and after an incre-mental exercise performed on a treadmill, in order to identify a possible defect as a factor determining motor performance impairment. The exercise protocol consisted of 11 steps of 2 minutes of duration, at a constant speed of 3 km/h; the grade was 0 at the beginning and was incremented of 2.5 % each step. Lactate was evaluated at rest and during recovery (at 1’, 5’, 10 ’ and 30 ’ after the end of the exercise). We found that lactate resting values didn’t show a significant difference between older and young people. During recovery, older people showed significantly higher values at any time. The analysis of results permitted to distinguish a subgroup of 11 out of 34 subjects with a behaviour similar to young’s one. In conclusion the abnormal lactate increase observed in this study points out a reduced oxi-dative muscle function in older people. Interestingly, the test employed allowed to identify two subgroups: with normal levels and with altered levels of lactate. The latter could due to a different individual mt-DNA damage susceptibility. Key words: aerobic capacity, ageing process, serum lactate, skeletal muscle function. Basic Appl Myol 12 (5): 209-212, 2002 During ageing processes neuromuscular apparatus undergoes structural and functional modifications in-volving both nervous system and muscle and this causes a reduction in motor performance. These modifications have been assessed on experi-mental animals and humans through histological, bio-mechanical and functional analysis. Many authors showed important structural changes in the aged muscle. Tomlison et al. (1969) [29], Larsson et
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology (medical)
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2187434348