That doesn't mean that lactic acid itself is a dairy product, however - it's 100% vegan. Bacteria in these foods use anaerobic respiration to break lactose - milk sugar - into lactic acid.
Because of the acidifying effect they have on saliva, these bacteria are bad news for tooth enamel, according to a study published in Microbiology (opens in new tab).įinally, lactic acid is commonly found in fermented dairy products, like buttermilk, yogurt and kefir. Slightly more insidious are the lactic acid bacteria that live in our mouths. The more sugar these little guys eat, the more lactic acid they produce. In fact, these species make up between 0.01-1.8% of the human gut, according to a review published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology (opens in new tab). Many species of bacteria also respire anaerobically and produce lactic acid as a waste product. Red blood cells don't have mitochondria - the part of the cell responsible for aerobic respiration - so they only respire anaerobically. Red blood cells also produce lactic acid as they roam the body, according to the online text Anatomy and Physiology (opens in new tab) published by Oregon State University. Muscle cells aren't the only sources of lactic acid. For example, lactate can be used directly by the brain and heart for energy or converted into glucose in the liver or kidneys, which can then be used by nearly any cell in the body for energy. In fact, research in Bioscience Horizons (opens in new tab) suggests that lactate is beneficial to the body during and after exercise in numerous ways. It’s also important to remember that lactate itself isn’t 'bad'. The burning sensation you feel in your legs during a heavy workout probably isn't caused by lactic acid, but instead by tissue damage and inflammation. Things such as stretching, rolling, or walking will have little to no impact." This is a natural process that occurs in the body. "This conversion also reduces the acidity in the blood, thus removing some of the burning sensation.
The liver can take up some of the lactic acid molecules and convert them back to glucose for fuel," says Grover. "Your body naturally metabolizes the lactic acid, clearing it out. Therefore, there is no build-up of lactic acid in your legs during intense exercise, and lactic acid is clearly not the cause of muscle burning and fatigue during intense exercise.Īlthough blood lactate concentration does increase during intense exercise, the lactic acid molecule itself dissociates and the lactate is recycled and used to create more ATP. In other words, the pH of our blood is too alkaline, or not acidic enough to sustain the bond between the hydrogen ion and the lactate molecule.Īs a result, lactic acid in the body freely dissociates into the freestanding lactate molecule and lone hydrogen ions. When you're exercising at a high intensity - and your body needs a lot of energy quickly - your fast-twitch muscle fibers will kick in and start producing energy anaerobically (without oxygen.) The fibers will still be relying on the glycolysis process to produce this energy, but as the pyruvate chemical can't be harvested for this purpose it gets turned into a waste produce instead: lactic acid.Īlthough exercise physiologists used to believe lactic acid could accumulate in the muscles and bloodstream during hard exercise, research in the journal Physiology (opens in new tab) has elucidated the fact that lactic acid as a molecule cannot exist in its intact form in the body because the pH of human blood is too high.
This chemical is then used as a source of energy for the body – but it can only be harvested as an energy source in the presence of oxygen.
One of our most important metabolic pathways, known as glycolysis, breaks down glucose molecules (simple sugars from the foods we eat) into pyruvate. A metabolic pathway is basically a chain of chemical reactions.
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