Interleukin 12 correlates with performance, metabolism, and acid-base balance during physical exercise

Abstract

Exercise has become a tool for understanding immunometabolism. To investigate the acute impact of a treadmill running test on immunometabolism. Ten male subjects participated in treadmill protocol with progressively increased until exhaus-tion, having an average time of 14 minutes. The treadmill protocol with progressively increased until exhaustion induced ∆% in IL-12 of 160%, lactate of 607%, glucose of 58%, pH of -3%, BE of -529%, bicarbonate of - 58%, and anion gap of 232%. It was observed that the lower the -∆% in IL-12, the greater the phase to reach the anaerobic threshold (AT) in Km/h and the time to reach this same threshold, and the opposite was also true, confirmed by the Spearman test. Other correlations were observed: between post-IL-12 and pre-anion gap, post-IL-12 and post-chloride, IL-12-∆% and post-anion gap, and IL-12-∆% and post-lactate, pre-IL-12 and post-anion gap, post-IL-12 and pre-LDH, post-IL-12 and post-LDH, post-IL -12 and BE post, post-IL-12 and post bicarbonate, and post-IL-12 and post pH. The AT was reached in 7:52 minutes, in the 14.9 km/h phase, with a heart rate of 163 BPM, an power of 524 W, and a VO2 of 3.12 l.min.  A correlation between IL-12, performance, metabolism, and blood acid-base balance is sug-gested. It was possible to infer that, even with a relatively small but extremely homogeneous sample, the behavior of IL-12 could explain 74% of the anion gap behavior.