However, under rich oxygen conditions, the body kicks into its most efficient gear of energy production, the oxidation, or oxygen pathway of protein, carbohydrate, or fatty acid metabolism. Calcium and magnesium combine with lactic acid, neutralizing the negative effect of excess lactic acid, normalizing pH, and normalizing breathing for asthma, emotional disturbances, and restoring the ill health of people in many disease conditions. Hyde, Cheney, and Goldstein have used it in their practice with CFS to improve energy and reduce pain. The reason for greater energy is made clear by Lehninger. It doesn't neutralize lactic acid build-up directly.
Energy production uses another pathway with malic acid.
Szent-Gyorgyi found that malic acid kicks red muscle into using oxygen to produce its energy rather than anaerobic ways of doing it. Rather than reducing the effects of lactic acid, malic acid gives a signal to the mitochondria to use oxygen to burn fat as fuel or to use oxygen to burn glucose as energy. Red muscle is red because of its oxygen content. Oxygen gives muscle and blood its redness. The red blood cell abnormalities in people subject to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and chronic fatigue may stem from inability of the RBC to carry adequate oxygen to the cells, so the cells revert to their least efficient mode of energy production, the lactic acid or alcohol pathways.