Why your muscles could be streaked with fat like bacon
We all know to worry about fat around our waists or clogging our arteries. But now there is a new place to potentially be concerned about – secret stashes of fat accumulating in your muscles. A growing body of international research is finding that people with these hidden pockets of fat – known as intermuscular fat – could be at higher risk of some health conditions, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. And potentially even those without a very high BMI may be affected. Muscles were generally thought to mainly be made up of lean tissue in long, cylindrical, closely packed strands. But researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, have found there is a wide variety in how much fat people have in-between these lean fibres. These small bits of fat are like the ‘marbling’ of fine lines of white fat you see on beef steaks that add succulence. But while this might be desirable in meat, in human bodies it is less welcome...
