The 111th edition of the world-famous Tour de France starts June 29 in Florence, Italy. This year, the grueling 21-stage bike race takes place over 2,175 miles across Italy and France.
As an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, San Millán has studied the interactions of cancer and lactate, a byproduct released by cells during regular metabolism — and in particular, by muscle cells during intense exercise like cycling. While elite athletes' bodies easily flush that lactate out of their systems, in people with cancer, tumors release huge amounts of lactate that then sticks around, spurring on the cancer.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Iñigo San Millán: Years ago, you'd have to do a bit of everything. Now, you have the resources to recruit excellent coaches, nutritionists, biomechanics, psychologists … and then it's about coordinating and integrating them as seamlessly and productively as possible.
We had Pogačar and 20 other riders at UAE Team Emirates undertake a 15-minute warm-up at a low intensity of 2 watts per kilogram of bodyweight. Intensity cranked up by 0.5 w/kg every 10 minutes. Power output, heart rate and lactate were measured throughout the test, including at the end when the riders were exhausted. We discovered that lactate-clearance capacity of the stronger riders was incredible.ISM: When a rider's sprinting or climbing, they generate a huge amount of lactate.
But we knew different. We knew from his blood parameters that he could not only recover quickly between in-stage efforts but between stages, too. No one improves during a race of that length, but it's about reducing the decrement in performance. And that's what Pogačar managed, and why the three stage wins he bagged all came in the second and third weeks.
With our work we're looking to reprogram a cancer sufferer's metabolism by, among many options, blocking the enzyme that produces lactate. We have a new study under review where we've silenced the enzyme that produces lactate, LDHA, and we can see that in 6 hours, EGFR is not expressed .