Antioxidant treatment attenuates lactate production in diabetic nephropathy.

The early progression of diabetic nephropathy is notoriously difficult to detect and quantify before the occurrence of substantial histological damage. Recently, hyperpolarized [1-C]pyruvate has demonstrated increased lactate production in the kidney early after the onset of diabetes, implying increased lactate dehydrogenase activity as a consequence of increased nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide substrate availability due to upregulation of the polyol pathway, i.e.