How Acid Buffers in Sports Supplements Reduce Lactic Acid


World-class endurance athletes and their trainers are constantly seeking new ways to improve performance and endurance without running afoul of the organizations that monitor their sport or sacrificing their health. At such an elite level, improvements measured by fractions of a second can be quite significant so triathletes and other types of endurance athletes examine every aspect of diet, training, sleep patterns and other factors to gain a competitive edge. Thanks to innovative research on how our bodies manufacture lactic acid and process it, endurance athletes and their trainers now have a much better understanding of how to prepare for elite competitions.

Best of all, their decisions are based on hard scientific evidence instead of anecdotal evidence and supposition. Over the last several years, several sports supplements have been developed to help prevent lactic acid buildup in muscle tissue during intense exercise by including compounds that act as lactic acid buffers. This overview of how lactic acid buffers help reduce lactic acid buildup from impairing performance and endurance during intense workouts has been demonstrated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study.

How Lactic Acid is Produced and Processed by the Human Body

When the muscle cells in an endurance athlete’s body need fuel, they convert glycogen or glucose into lactic acid. Next, each muscle cell’s mitochondria, the power plant of a cell, burns lactic acid for fuel. Specific types of proteins called “transporter proteins” expedite the delivery of lactic acid, also called lactate, to each cell’s mitochondria through a network of tiny tubes throughout the cell. Through proper training, an endurance athlete like a triathlete can gradually improve the rate at which lactic acid is burned for fuel in their body so it doesn’t accumulate in their muscle tissue and impair performance, endurance, and cause them to “hit the wall.”

How Lactic Acid Buffers Work

Buffers are substances that help prevent any solution, such as blood or the fluid in muscle tissue, from undergoing a change in pH when introducing an acid, such as lactic acid, or alkali. In order to illustrate how lactic acid buffers work and help an endurance athlete stay competitive, it is helpful to have a basic understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the human body.

The lungs and kidneys work together to maintain a pH of 7.4 in blood by altering the components of naturally occurring buffers. If the blood’s pH becomes too acid or alkali with pH’s as low as 7.0 or as high as 7.8, the body’s buffers can no longer compensate for the extreme conditions and systems begin to fail one after the other. There are four major buffering systems in the human body:

Biocarbonate buffers found in the blood’s plasma correct the equilibrium shift that occurs when a surplus of lactic acid in muscle tissue creates an abundance of excess hydrogen ions.

Hemoglobin in red blood cells acts as a buffer to byproducts and other threats to the pH balance in blood. For instance, when glucose is broken down into fuel by muscle cells and converted to lactic acid, the byproducts created are carbon dioxide and excess hydrogen ions.

Phosphate buffers are essential for buffering the pH of fluid in cells and are especially important for buffering urine in the kidneys.

Protein buffers also buffer the effects of excess hydrogen ions created when glucose converts in lactic acid. Protein buffers primarily buffer the pH of fluid inside cells.

Lactic Acid Buffers such as Magnesium and Potassium

Many sports supplements include magnesium and potassium in their formulas because these two substances, along with a lesser amount of sodium, help regulate fluids in cells, especially muscle cells, and help equalize or buffer the blood’s pH. Potassium levels maintained in a ratio of 5:1 to sodium help regulate water retention in our bodies and prevent too much potassium from voiding as waste in urine. Potassium protects against kidney damage, strokes and high blood pressure.

Only within the last two decades has magnesium’s importance in maintaining proper pH and overall health been understood. Research has found that magnesium is essential for facilitating the storage of potassium in our bodies. Without magnesium, the human body cannot store potassium. When triathletes and other endurance athletes take sports supplements that contain recommended dosages of potassium and magnesium, the amount of sodium removed from the body increases, as does the amount of excess fluids. These minerals are not only essential to proper health and balance, they also facilitate the body’s ability to buffer and quickly process the lactic acid created during strenuous exercise.

Whether you’re an elite endurance athlete or a weekend warrior, taking a sports supplement with lactic acid buffers such as potassium and magnesium is not only a good way to gain a competitive edge, it is also essential for overall health!

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1204965_23.html

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what a sunday afternoon..

When the star ten times more massive than our own Sun, explodes (Supernova) it leaves behind the strangest phenomenon in the Universe. The Black Hole. After explosion what is left behind is heavy core of subatomic particles, a Neutron Star. It can be very small, but with enormous density. Scientists calculated that approximately one teaspoon of Neutron Star would weight around billions of tons. The gravitational pressure of this highly dense object is so large that it can bend fabric of time and space. This theory is based on Einstein's proposition that space and time are woven together in a flexible fabric. Massive objects like Sun warp the fabric of space and time and pull smaller objects like Earth. Very large Neutron Star can warp time and space fabric so much that it could create a hole where gravity is so strong that not even light could escape. Black Holes are pulling everything around them closer to the center of the hole. In some sense black holes are creators of the galaxies since they are pulling planets and stars towards the spiral center. Each galaxy has a Black Hole and occasionally galaxies collide together because of the gravitational pull from the larger black holes. It is expected that in 5 billion years Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way galaxy.

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930. The 2009 flu pandemic is a global outbreak of a new strain of influenza virus, officially named the "new H1N1", first identified in April 2009, and commonly called "Swine flu." It is thought to be a mutation of four known strains of the influenza A virus, subtype H1N1: one endemic in (normally infecting) humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine). Experts assume the virus "most likely" emerged from pigs in Asia, and was carried to North America by infected persons. There is also evidence that the new strain had been circulating among pigs on other continents for years before infecting humans. Cooked pork products are safe to eat as the virus cannot be transmitted by eating and it is transited from human to human. The virus typically spreads from coughs and sneezes or by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching the nose or mouth. Symptoms, which can last up to a week, are similar to those of seasonal flu, and may include fever, sneezes, sore throat, coughs, headache, and muscle or joint pains. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that most cases worldwide have been mild so far and most hospitalizations and deaths have been of persons that also had underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or a weakened immune system. So far, over 200 000 people have been infected with Swine Flu, while "only" about 1 600 have died, which is mortality rate of 0.8 percent, so we should not panic, but we should be cautious. Compared to Black Plague pandemic between 1348. and 1350. in Europe, which had mortality rate of over 75 percent, Swine Flu is not so scary, isn't it?

woots!

i'm very happy looking at my ord counting timer at the left side of my blog!
it's like only TWO digits left.
soon will be 1 digit!

gotta plan what i'll be doing during the holidays already.
not holidays maybe, but rather break.

feel like giving tuition.
but seems like i've returned all my jc knowledge back to my teachers.


shall brush up and give tuition!
it's good money yeah.

it seems like it was just yesterday that i shouted POP OH!
it's gonna be very soon that i'll shout ORD OH!
time passes real fast.

and seems like police, is actually not that bad afterall.
a potential career option for me!

WAHAHAHA.

There is actually no such fish as a sardine. What we call sardines are actually small or immature fishes in the herring family (Clupeidae). What are called sardines in northern European countries may be sild or brisling (types of herring). Likewise, in the northeastern United States, sardines may be other types of small herring. In France or Portugal, sardines are likely to be pilchards. In addition, it is not uncommon for any host of small, oily, silvery, edible fishes (non herring) to be referred to as sardines. Sardines travel in large schools along coastlines throughout the world. They got their name from the canning process that was first developed in Sardinia ( an island near Italy).





Sardines are typically packed in oil or water. If served fresh, they may be prepared grilled, broiled, fried, salted, smoked, or served in a variety of sauces. They are a good source of protein and are low in saturated fat. They are also high in Omega 3 fatty acids, which are considered to be heart healthy. Sardine oil is used primarily as a lubricant and in some soap products.





Interesting, the word sardine is regularly used to indicate a condition of being packed into something (as sardines are in a can). For example:





*We felt like sardines on the train.


*At the sleepover, all of my friends were sardined on the floor because we had but one bed.

Everyone has weakness - physical, emotional, intellectual, and/or others. The phrase Achilles' heel is used in contemporary language to describe a point of weakness or vulnerability in someone or something. For example:



* The airplane that we built is beautiful, but we must examine its engine for any Achilles' heels.

* She is just too good to be true; surely she has an Achilles' heel.



Achilles' heel originates from Greek mythology. Interestingly, in Homer's Iliad, Achilles' weakness was his pride. It was the Roman poet Statius who wrote of the tale of Achilles and the River Styx. When Achilles was born, his mother, Thethis, desired to make him immortal. It was reputed that the waters of Styx, a poisonous underworld river, held such supernatural powers, so she took him to the riverbank and, holding him by his heel, dipped him in the river. Later, he was mortally wounded in the Trojan War by an injury to his heel - the hell that remained untouched by the river water because of his mother's grasp on it.