Lactate production results from anaerobic glycolysis. This pathway is recruited physiologically during intense and sustained muscular contractions. Hyperlactatemia may develop when tissue oxygenation is jeopardized such as in shock, its absence having been, however, sometimes reported in sepsis in which interactions between infectious agents and the organism's cells might blunt or disrupt hyperlactatemia development. During the course of acute rotavirus gastroenteritis, a 9-month-old girl developed severe dehydration (capillary-refill time, 5 s) leading to hypovolemic shock without signs of sepsis and with hypotension at 62/21 mmHg Surprisingly, the child failed to develop hyperlactatemia during shock. An etiologic search to understand why hyperlactatemia did not occur revealed that this patient had been receiving propranolol since the age of four months for the treatment of a Cyrano hemangioma. Via its inhibitory action on β-adrenergic receptors, propranolol antagonizes the stimulation of glycolysis by catecholamines, which may be rationally proposed to have contributed to preventing hyperlactatemia during hypovolemic shock in this patient. Mechanisms by which propranolol can mediate this antihyperlactatemia action are further illustrated and discussed.
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