I am trying to determine which portable lactate monitor is the best to use for research. Since it will be used in exercise testing, it needs to be accurate and reliable at both low (10 mmol/L) concentrations.
There are many on the market with several papers detailing supposed reliability so it is not the most straight forward decision.
Any information or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
We have worked with the NOVA Biomedical Lactate Plus for a number if years. We have done some small studies in the lab and found it to have good reliability and validity compared to some of the other units available.
Question extension:
Recently, I advised two of my elite runners to purchase the BSX Insight lactate sleeve to test lactate threshold in a noninvasive manner. The sleeve goes over the calf muscle and measures the average oxygen consumption and correlates it to lab supported lactate tests. I am trying to understand the SmO2 portion of the BSX.
My goal is to relate SmO2 data from daily workouts to lactate readings, about which I am more familiar. Presently, it's not been easy for me to find information that connects the two data domains; and the owners/engineers of BSX are keeping their algorithm that converts SmO2 data a trade secrets, for obvious financial reasons. Yet, I need to put the SmO2 data concept to work; I need to make reasonably good decisions about what the data means as I adjust training for my athletes.
As a request, please share any insights, advice, or speculation about how to connect the SmO2 data to lactate parameters. Moreover, please offer suggestions about how to gather, assess, and analyze SmO2 data for the purpose of improving the precision of training runners. (Even if someone has tested, monitored, or guided the performance of cyclists or other endurance athletes in the lab or field, please share insights about the experience.
Thank you very much, and take care,
Tom
I am currently writing a review on this topic. Based on scientific evidence published (i.e. reliability and validity studies), I could tell you that I-STAT is the most reliable and valid BL analyser. However it needs a considerably higher amount of blood sample and time to analyse it. Edge is also very suitable for all range of BL concentrations and Xpress and Lactate Pro2 revealed as being accurate and reliable specially in low and high concentrations, respectively.
Hi Bryan,
We used Lactate Pro with good results (see a paer related to this instrument: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/2/e001899.full).
The only problem we had few times was related to the use of it under high temperature, but related to the test strips, not the instrument. Take this in account.
I recommend the reading of some papers related to the methodology of using differents systems:
Recently: J Sports Sci Med. 2015 Mar; 14(1): 203–214. Reliability and Accuracy of Six Hand-Held Blood Lactate Analysers. Jacinta M. Bonaventura,1,* Ken Sharpe,2,* Emma Knight,3,* Kate L. Fuller,1,* Rebecca K. Tanner,1,* and Christopher J. Gore1,4,✉*, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306774/
Regards
Bryan, there is no perfect hand held lactate analyzer out there. All have their issues. We tested the Nova Biomedical Lactate Plus and found it to be very accurate and reliable under typical laboratory conditions. However, as we mentioned in our paper, you have to be very careful in using the instrument or you get error messages.
Good luck in your efforts.
Many thanks for all the answers, I think I am beginning to form an idea of which one to go for.
Cheers!
I have been measuring lactate for 20 years and have used the YSI (1500 and 2300 models) which has been the gold standard. Dr. Lange and Diaglobal are great small photometers but time consuming. In the past 5 years I have moved to Lactate Plus and Lactate Pro. Have run many comparisons with YSI and photometers and both Lactate Plus and Lactate Pro are very reliable (r=0.99). They give you results in 12 seconds which is really fast.
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