An injection can replicate the benefits of exercise

Without time for train? Science has good news: a natural compound that Your own body produces During exercise you can imitate part of its benefits. This means that even if your daily routine does not include hours in the gym, your brain and your body could continue to receive some of the positive effects that you would normally get to move.

Lactate: the key molecule that activates the welfare hormone

Researchers of the Swedish School of Sports and Health Sciences In Stockholm (Sweden) has confirmed what sport lovers have always known for experience: exercise is good for the brain.

Specifically, according to a new study, published in ‘Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience‘, it has been possible to verify how blood flow increases, inhibits stress hormones and stimulates the release of endorphins They make us feel good. Thus, it is believed that a way in which exercise produces these benefits in the brain is through a chain of processes that finally results in the release of the BDNF hormone.

Produced by the liver, brain, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, it is known that BDNF Promote growth, survival and maintenance of nerve cells.

Previous studies have suggested that the beginning of this physiological chain is a high level of blood lactate, a byproduct of carbohydrate conversion into energy in the muscle, liver and blood when oxygen is limited, for example, during the high intensity exercise. Now, this new study has discovered that the physiological benefits of exercise can be partially imitated by a simple intravenous lactate infusion.

How scientists simulate part of the benefits of sport

“Here we demonstrate for the first time that this infusion produces blood lactate levels characteristic of the average to intense intensity exercise. Ultimately, this increases the levels of the precursor molecule of the BDNF, probably released by skeletal muscle,” says the doctor Marcus Mobergprincipal author and titular professor of the Swedish School of Sports and Health Sciences in Stockholm.

The authors conducted a random crossing with 12 healthy volunteers between 20 and 40 years. After fasting during the night, they were invited to lie down while receiving an intravenous infusion of sodium lactate for an hour and, between seven and 30 days later, an infusion of saline solution of one hour duration; Or, these treatments were administered in reverse order.

Blood was extracted from each volunteer every 10 minutes during both treatments, as well as at 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes later. A biopsy of the leg muscle was performed before and immediately after each lactate infusion, as well as at 60 and 120 minutes.

A control group of additional six volunteers underwent exclusively to a treatment with saline solution, and also donated blood samples and four muscle biopsies. The researchers They measured the concentration of lactate in each sample of blood or muscle tissue. In addition, they quantified Pro-BDNF levels, a biologically active precursor molecule of the BDNF, in addition to its mature molecular shape, MBDNF, in blood plasma, serum and poor platelets (that is, plasma from which most platelets have been eliminated).

As expected, the concentration of blood lactate increased during infusion, reaching maximum values ​​similar to those that are normally obtained after the high intensity exercise. It should be noted that the concentration of the pro-bdnf prohormone increased 15 minutes after the end of lactate infusion and kept high during the two hours later. On the contrary, neither the level of PRO-BDNF in the muscle nor that of MBDNF in plasma or serum varying during or after lactate infusion.

Why intense exercise is still irreplaceable

The authors concluded that intravenous lactate infusion is sufficient to increase pro-bdnf levels in blood, but without affecting those of MBDNF.

In other words, lactate infusion alone is enough to imitate some, but not all, the physiological effects of high intensity exercise. This increase in Pro-BDNF is expected to have effects similar benefits in brain health, regardless of the underlying mechanism.

However, researchers clarify the results of this research. “Rather, we speculate that the intensity of the exercise is important if the objective is brain health. It is recommended to perform high intensity exercise a couple of times per week, thus exposing the brain to high levels of lactate, for a healthy neurological aging,” Moberg details.

“In the future, these findings can help in the specific and individualized prescription of exercise in clinical environments, especially for populations with committed brain health,” he insists.

In addition, since it is known that Lactate exerts effects similar to hormonalthere is the possibility of pharmacological interventions. This would require additional research to determine the exact mechanism by which lactate controls the BDNF metabolism in humans.